All about Weather

Since we were going away on holiday Freya has shown a real interest in the weather so I have worked on some different weather ideas.

First I started by reading the book Oh Say Can You Say What’s The Weather Today. I love these books as they introduce topics in a ‘Cat in the Hat’ style meaning that they are enjoyable on so many different levels.

Montessori Materials:

First of all I started by making these weather symbol cards so that we could talk about different types of weather – they are based on the symbols from the UK met office. I have just added one for wind as they didn’t have one.

I then made a felt weather map so that Freya and Seb could create their own weather maps. Freya especially enjoyed it – but she noticed that you can’t tell whether it is hot or cold.

I quickly looked online and found this idea on Pinterest to make a thermometer so that Freya could see that we use numbers for temperature and what they mean.

Here you can downoad a printble to make the Thermometer.

To make weather more Tactile and Sensory I was inspired by the post by Two-daloo.com for weather sensory bottles. I added a few new ones including thunder by putting a silver sparker coming out of a cloud. A Sunny intervals one – grey pom poms with a yellow one for sun. Finally a rainbow one which I created using pipe cleaners. I didn’t have any glycerin so I made up my own solution with some geletin so that the objects moved a little slower.

I then used the bottles as a matching activity with some Real weather cards that I made Freya and especially Sebastin enjoyed this activity.

As I had a few bottles left over Freya really enjoyed making her own versions too!

To extend things further I made these cloud cards – I haven’t used them yet but plan to use them with this great idea I found where you create the clouds using cotton wool.

Some other cards I have made but haven’t used yet are about the Instruments for weather.

As we are a sailing family I am planning to teach Freya about the Beaufort scale. I found some great images showing the sea state at different wind speeds which I have turned into cards.

As a final activity we talked about the seasons and which seasons weather was most likely to occur.

Books

This book has lots of great photos an info on weather

I use this as a story to introduce weather – lovely rhymes and easy for Seb to listen to too.

This book has some great facts in it and activity ideas.

I love this range of books – again they are in an easy to read format and stimulate lots question.

Similar to book above but focussing on clouds.

Ditto for wind!

This book answers lots abut weather.

And there is so much more we could do!!

For more amazing ideas take a look at my Pinterest.