Weather Week
- Julie Shamblin
- Oct 24, 2022
- 4 min read
Updated: Apr 22, 2024
A Weather science unit for homeschool, worldschool or just for fun.
All about tornados, hurricanes, clouds, rain and heat waves. We also tackled Hurricane Katrina. Younger learners might want to skip some of the weather disaster themes but there's still plenty to discuss. For older kids, there's a ton of great reads about famous disasters and epic survival stories.
Printables
Here's this week's info, all wrapped up into an easy-to-read printable. Click here for the full color copy and click here for a low-ink black and white version.
On the Dining Room Wall
This free printable showing different types of clouds and their names.
A few notecards showing common Fahrenheit temperature reference points with their Celsius counterparts.
Talking Points
Little ones can learn basic weather terms like tornados, flood, blizzard, etc.
Older ones can start to grasp the difference between Fahrenheit and Celsius.
Discuss survival techniques for extreme weather.
Books
One from each category plus an assortment of picture books is usually just perfect.
Not all book series are as good as the next. Get the scoop on some of our favorites here.
Base Non-Fiction Books:
What was Hurricane Katrina? (Who HQ Book) A solid introduction to Hurricane Katrina and a good conversation starter about how privilege can affect someone's ability to survive and/or recover from a disaster.
Twisters and Other Terrible Storms (Magic Treehouse Fact Tracker #8) The companion book to Magic Tree House #23: Twister on Tuesday. Easy to break into readable chunks.
You Wouldn't Want to Live without Extreme Weather (You Wouldn't Want Book Series) Maybe not the most successful book from this series but it has some good information and you can flip though and pick and choose to read what looks the most interesting.
Base Fiction Chapter Book:
(Some of these books are part of a series but all of them work as stand alone books.)
Twister on a Tuesday (Magic Treehouse Book #23) Jack and Annie travel back to the 1870s and experience a twister.
Hurricane Heroes in Texas (Magic Treehouse Book #30) Jack and Annie travel back to 1900 to Galveston, Texas.
Hurricane Katrina Rescue (Ranger in Time Book #8) This one had a lot of heart and kept us on the edges of our seats. We love Ranger and this book did a great job presenting some very realistic disaster scenarios.
Other Notable Books
Have more time? Try these too.
Can You Survive Storm Chasing? (You Choose Series) My kids love these books but those with young learners should be aware that you will die in about half of these endings.
I Survived Hurricane Katrina, 2005 (I Survived Series) These can be a little intense, but if you're kids are into them, go for it!
I Survived the Galveston Hurricane, 1900 (I Survived Series)
Picture Books
Library inventories vary so much with picture books. Rather than wasting time tracking down specific ones, I like to do keyword searches and just grab what's available.
Search these keywords: Weather, Hurricanes, Tornados, Storms, Meteorology, Clouds.
We liked theses:
The Man Who Named the Clouds An engaging story about how clouds got their names. It's a long-ish picture book and easily broken into two or three short reading sessions. Probably best read outside under some clouds.
Breaking Through the Clouds A look at the life of one of the pioneering woman meteorologists and the obstacles she overcame and the things she accomplished.
Things to Watch
Magic School Bus Kicks Up a Storm - Season 1, episode 13
Interactive Learning: Crafts, Food, Activities
Weather Activity Book SciJinks has a free weather activity book you can download including printables of coloring sheets, crosswords and other activities.
Make a Cloud in a Bottle NASA shows you how to make your own cloud at home.
Keep your own weather journal for a week.
Create a disaster preparedness kit.
Field Trip Ideas
I was a little stumped for field trip ideas this week but here's what I came up with:
If there's a storm, watch it!
Grab a blanket, head to your yard or a park and watch some clouds.
Is there a wind farm near you that you can visit?
Vocabulary
Storm Surge: a rising of the sea as a result of atmospheric pressure changes and wind associated with a storm.
Cloud types, depending on how much you care about committing those to memory.
Trivia
Q: What's the difference between weather and climate? A: Weather refers to short term atmospheric conditions while climate is the weather of a specific region averaged over a long period of time.
Q: What part of the storm is calm? A: The eye!
Charitable Giving Suggestions*
*I have not done research on any charity listed on this blog. I personally liked the idea of teaching our kids to be charitable and thought it might be helpful to list a few ideas here as well. Please do your own due diligence it you have high expectations of charities.
End of Week Movie Night Ideas
Segue Ideas... Climate Change, Natural Disasters
Wrap Up
We finished up weather week with tornado pancakes! We learned so much about weather this week! The books and activities would make a great science homeschool unit about weather.
Final Moment
The kids, happy that it's raining, on our Airbnb apartment's patio in Sarajevo, Bosnia circa 2018.
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