Spring is finally here and it's the perfect time to learn about Weather!
During our Morning Meeting, we always assess the weather and pick the best word for our weather chart. I thought the kids would also enjoy keeping track of the weather when they're home so we made a Weather Wheel!
A cheap paper plate is the base of the Weather Wheel while a clothespin marks the day's weather. So simple but the kids absolutely love them!
To prep, draw lines on the plate dividing it into quarters. Have your students draw a weather picture in each section. We did the basics... sunny, cloudy, rainy, and snowy. Once the drawings are finished, punch a hole in the top, string a piece of yarn or pipe cleaner in it, and attach the clothespin. That's it!
Our Sensory Table was filled with rainbow colored rice, huge snowballs, snowflake cookie cutters, sunny yellow pom poms, clear glass beads, and rainbow mini erasers.
One of the highlights of weather week was making a Water Cycle Bracelet! After reading about rain and the water cycle, we took colored pony beads and sequenced them in order on a pipe cleaner to demonstrate the Water Cycle. You could also use yarn for the bracelets.
White bead---the clouds collect tiny drops of water.
Blue bead---raindrops fall from the sky.
Brown bead---rain goes into lakes, rivers, oceans, the ground, and it makes puddles.
Yellow bead---the sun heats up the water.
Clear bead---tiny water droplets rise from the collected water. Some of it completely evaporates and some of the tiny drops are collected in clouds.
The water cycle begins again.
Not only is this a great visual for the students as they start to understand the Water Cycle, but parents absolutely love how much we're learning at school!
Does your class enjoy Write the Room activities? Mine does!
I made a colorful set of weather word cards and "hid" them all around the classroom. Students walked around, found the weather cards, and then wrote the word on their Write the Room recording sheet. I am working hard to get this Weather resource ready for you in my Teachers Pay Teachers store!
Another weather activity we made was this Weather Mobile!
By the way, the Weather Mobile will also be included with the Write the Room activity in my TPT store!
We made our Weather Mobiles during small groups at the Teacher Table but you could also have your students create them at morning Table Time.
After students colored and cut the weather cards, they laced them on the mobile. To prepare the mobile, I hole punched six holes along the bottom of a sentence strip. I also cut pipe cleaners in half to use to lace the weather cards. With a little modeling and step by step directions, my kids were able to lace their weather cards to hang down from the sentence strip. A little twist of the pipe cleaner ends secured the cards in place. The best thing about using pipe cleaners instead of yarn is that it doesn't tangle!
Beautiful spring weather and lots of Learning at the Teacher Table made it a great week!
