3rd grade

General Objective: Describe the weather conditions.

Lesson Objective: Observing the weather.

Motivator: Ask the students to describe the day’s weather. Go outside and have them use the recording sheet Observe the Weather. Tell the students to use their senses to observe the weather.

• Observe the Weather worksheet
• Watching the Weather chart
• Watching the Weather Graph worksheet
• My Favorite Weather worksheet
• Page with weather symbols on it

1. Explain that weather forecasters keep records of daily weather to help them predict the weather for the following days. Tell the students that for the next month, the class will use some weather symbols to make a record of the weather on a class calendar chart. Show and explain the symbols.
2. At the same time each day, ask the students which symbol should be posted to best represent the day’s weather. Post the day’s symbol on the class calendar chart.
3. After a few days of observing, ask the students to predict what they think the weather will be like tomorrow. Have the class vote and post the most frequent guesses next to the chart. Compare their predictions with the actual weather conditions on the following day.
4. On the student sheet Watching the Weather Graph, record the number of days that each type of weather occurred.

• Have students record the week’s weather from the class calendar onto their chart Watching the Weather. They can draw or write their observations on the chart.

1. Use the recording sheet My Favorite Weather as a culmination for weather observation.
2. At the end of the month go over all charts and graphs with the students and discuss the data.

Teaching Strategies: Discussion, Observation, Investigation, and Guided Discovery

• Cloudy: you can’t see the sun at all. The sky is filled with clouds
• Data: information collected on a subject
• Foggy: it is hard to see through the air.
• Graph: a chart used to record data on.
• Hail: there are frozen chunks of water falling from the sky.
• Partly cloudy: there are some clouds covering the sun, but the sun is out.
• Rainy: there is water falling from the sky.
• Snowy: there is frozen water (snow) falling from the sky.
• Sunny: clear skies and the sun is shinning.
• Water: the liquid that comes from clouds.
• Windy: the air is moving. There is a breeze.
• Weather forecaster: a person who keeps record of the weather and then tells us.

Teaching Strategies: Collect, organize, record and describe data

Extensions:

• Discuss the dangers that some storms bring. Make a class plan for any severe weather in your area.
• Make paper dolls and clothing for them that corresponds with certain weather. Have the students dress the dolls to match that days weather.
• Have the students create pictures to match the weather outside using water paint for rainy days and bold tempera colors for sunny days.

Hoover, E; Mercier, S. Primarily Earth AIMS Activities. AIMS Education Foundation. 1996