Activities

This part of our web site is designed to give you lots of activities pertaining to the weather. Make sure that you get the help of an adult before you begin. Have fun!

Weather Diary
Make a diary all about the weather. Get a composition book or any other notepad. At the end of each day, write down what the weather was like. You may want to include temperature, any precipitation, and what clouds that you noticed. Keep the diary for at least one month. At the end of the month, look back over your notes and look for patterns. What was the "typical weather day" like for that month?

Make your own Cloud
Materials
A jar, warm water, a plastic bag of ice that fits over the jar opening, a sheet of black paper, a flashlight, matches.

Procedure

Place the jar on the black sheet of paper so you cannot see through the jar.
Fill about 1/3 of the jar with warm water.
Have a parent or teacher light a match, and hold the match over the jar opening.
After a few seconds, drop the match into the jar.
Quickly cover the jar with the bag of ice.
Shine the flashlight into the jar.
Observe the cloud on the inside of the jar!

Create a Cloud Graph
Record the cloud formations observed each day for one week. Make a bar graph which illustrates the frequency of the different types of clouds.

Pictures in the Clouds
Go outside on a cloudy day. Lie down on the ground and look at the clouds. Try to picture different animals and objects in the clouds. See who can come up with the most creative observations.

Demonstrate a Weather Front

Partially fill four or five plastic bags with sand, twist and tie a knot at the top of each bag.
Fill a small plastic bowl with hot water and place it in the bottom of one end of a glass aquarium.
Place the sandbags at the opposite end of the tank.
Cover the tank.
Observe the clouds that form and moisture that collects on the sides of the tank.
Trace the pathway of cold air as it moves from the sandbags to the warm air above the water. The pathway demonstrates a cold front boundary.

Air Contains Moisture
Place water and ice in a glass. Add ink of any color. Let the glass stand until droplets of water have formed on the outside of the glass. Notice that the droplets on the outside of the glass are clear despite the ink which colors the water. This is because when warm air met the cold glass the water in the air turned into water droplets.

What Makes Fog?

Place one cup of hot water into a bottle.
Place an ice cube on the top of the bottle.
Put the container in front of a light.
Watch fog appear as the warm air and moist, cold air meet.

The Warmth of the Sun

Fill identical containers with the same amount of water making sure that the temperature of the water is the same.
Put the containers in the same room but place one container in the shade and the other in the sunlight.
Wait one hour and then touch the water in both containers, and measure both temperatures using a thermometer.
Notice that the water that was placed in the sun is warmer because it received more of the Sun's powerful rays.

How Does Water get into Air?

Fill two measuring cups with water.
Place colored tape around the line where the water comes up to.
Leave the cup uncovered for one week. Notice where the water line is each day and record this.
This activity will demonstrate that water gets into the air by evaporation.

Making A Windvane
Materials
Sheets of tagboard (8 x 11 1/2) - used in xerox machines, soda bottle, scotch tape, a fan, pins, and plastic straws.

Procedure
Draw the tail and pointer of the windvane on the tagboard. Join 2 straws together with a pin (you might want to tape this joint as well). Tape the tail and pointer onto the one straw. Put the windvane in the bottle. Turn on fan and watch your windvane go!

Read a book on the Weather
Here are some great children's' books with exciting weather tales:

The Wind Blew by Pat Hutchins. Copyright 1993 by Aladdin Books, Macmillan Publishing Co.
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett, illus. by Ron Barrett. Copyright 1978 by Aladdin Books, Macmillan Publishing Co.
Wild Weather Soup by Caroline Formby. Copyright 1995 by Child's Play (Int'l.) Limited.
Mirandy and Brother Wind by Patricia C. McKissack, illus. by Jerry Pinkney. Copyright 1988 by Alfred A Knopf Publishers.

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