Weather Observation in the Classroom

Whenever the weather would get even a tiny bit warmer in the spring, my daughter and I used to start looking for signs of spring like buds on the trees, grass turning green, the first bugs and little wildflowers.

One great way to bring those kinds of observations into the classroom or homeschool while building anticipation for spring is to take some time to observe the weather.

You can get as formal with this as you like. If you have a room with a window or easy access to outside, you can set up a weather station and observe different markers of the weather each day. You can keep a record of the temperature at a certain time of day (like always after lunch, for example) and what the weather is like so kids can compare over days and weeks.

Learn about clouds from What’s This Cloud, which gets really geeky but is good for older kids or teachers who want to brush up on their knowledge. You can also make cloud spotters and go on a cloud hunt to see what kinds of clouds you find.

These printable weather flash cards would be fun to have in a weather station in the classroom, or you can hang the one that represents the day’s weather on the board each day. This set comes from Easy Peasy Learners.

This is an old post with an explanation of how to make a weather chart but not a whole lot of instruction, but if you’re crafty you can figure out something similar to this one from Rowdy in Room 300 that includes the weather and a temperature gauge kids can use to label the day’s weather. Or use that as a jumping off point for making your own design. You could do it on a magnet board instead and use magnets instead of clips if you want, for example.

You can also use the calendar board weather printables from From ABCs to SATs to make your weather board. These include descriptions of the weather (foggy, rainy, sunny, etc.) as well as words about the temperature (hot, cold) and the season so you can show the correct one for the day (I think you need to sign up for emails to download).

When my daughter was younger I would spend a lot of time trying to come up with activities she could do in the car on long road trips and things to entertain her when we were waiting at restaurants and things that didn’t involve screens.

But it turns out there are a lot of great activities you can do with just a piece of paper and a pen.

What Do We Do All Day has a great collection of pen and paper games, including some that can be done with just one person, though they’re all more fun if you have at least two.

There are some classics on here like hangman and dots and boxes, but there are also quite a few I hadn’t heard of before.

I don’t want to spoil the whole list for you because you should definitely click over there and look around, but I will share about the one that you see pictured above.

This game is called Bridges, and you start by making the big random shape and the dividing it into a bunch of sections (the post says 30-50 sections is ideal but I think this one is smaller than that).

Each player gets their own color marker and you take turns drawing bridges from one space to another, crossing a third. Once there’s a bridge, no other bridges can start, end or cross in those spaces. Keep going until no more bridges can be built, and the person who makes the last bridge wins.

Check out the post over at What We Do All Day for more great ideas for no or almost-no prep games you can play with your kids or that kids can play together. I’d love to know if you have a favorite paper and pen game, whether it’s on this list or a different one.

[Photo: What We Do All Day]

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