Weather Activities
SUCK AN EGG INTO A BOTTLE
MATERIALS:
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glass bottle with a long, narrow neck (an apple cider jug works
well)
boiled egg
matches
PROCESS:
Put the empty bottle on a table.
Peel the boiled egg.
Light a match and drop it into the bottle. Repeat about three or
four times.
Quickly put the egg over the mouth of the bottle.
EXPLANATION:
What happens? The lit match heats the air inside the bottle. When
air is heated it expands and takes up more room. As the heated air
expands, some of it escapes out of the bottle. When the matches go
out, the air inside the bottle cools and contracts, which takes up
less room. This creates a lower pressure inside the bottle than
outside the bottle. The greater pressure outside the bottle forces
the egg to get sucked into the bottle.
*To get the egg back out of the bottle, tilt the bottle and blow air
into it. Make sure you get out of the way, because the egg will shoot
out.
CLOUD IN A BOTTLE
MATERIALS:
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2-liter clear plastic pop bottle
matches (children will need adult assistance to light matches)
warm water
PROCESS:
Fill the clear plastic 2-liter bottle one-third full of warm water and
place the cap on. As warm water evaporates, it adds water vapor to
the air inside the bottle. This is the first ingredient to make a
cloud.
Squeeze and release the bottle and observe what happens. You’ll
notice that nothing happens. Why? The squeeze represents the
warming that occurs in the atmosphere. The release represents the
cooling that occurs in the atmosphere. If the inside of the bottle
becomes cover with condensation or water droplets, just shake the
bottle to get rid of them.
Take the cap off the bottle. Carefully light a match and hold the
match near the opening of the bottle.
Then drop the match in the bottle and quickly put on the cap,
trapping the smoke inside. Dust, smoke or other particles in the air
is the second ingredient to make a cloud.
Once again, slowly squeeze the bottle hard and release. What
happens? A cloud appears when you release and disappears when you
squeeze. The third ingredient in clouds is a drop in air pressure.
EXPLANATION:
Water vapor, water in its invisible gaseous state, can be made to
condense into the form of small cloud droplets. By adding particles
such as the smoke enhances the process of water condensation and
by squeezing the bottle causes the air pressure to drop. This
creates a cloud!
BLUE SKY EXPERIMENT
MATERIALS:
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flashlight
2-liter pop bottle
milk
water
PROCESS:
Fill the 2-liter bottle three-fourths full of water and prop up the
flashlight, so it will shine through the bottle from the side.
Add a teaspoon of milk to the water.
Put the cap on the bottle and shake to mix up the water and milk.
What do you see? Keep adding milk until you start to see a blue light
that is scattered to your eyes from the mixture.
Once you see the blue light, add more milk to the mixture until you
see more of an orange or red light.
EXPLANATION:
Just like in the atmosphere, the mixture scatters more of the blue
wavelength than any other color. ’ why the sky is blue! At sunrise or
at sunset, there is even more scattering taking place due to the
angle of the sun. This causes the reds and oranges to scatter into
our atmosphere. That’s why our sunsets and sunrises are so colorful!
MAKE FOG
MATERIALS:
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glass jar
strainer
water
ice cubes
PROCESS:
Fill up the jar completely with hot water for about a minute.
Pour out almost all the water, but leave about one inch in the jar.
Put the strainer over the top of the jar.
Place a few (3-4) ice cubes in the strainer.
Watch what happens!
EXPLANATION:
The cold air from the ice cubes collides with the warm, moist air in
the bottle causing the water to condense and forming an eerie fog.
*All weather activities were found on weatherwizkids.com*
Math Activities
Construct a Weather Spinner!
Tracking the weather serves as a perfect educational—and entertaining—
introduction to the natural sciences. Your child will learn to see details and
patterns in atmospheric conditions. A simple weather spinner provides an
accessible tool for your child to improve her observation and analysis ability,
important scientific skills she will use for the rest of her life.
What You Need:
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White tag board or poster board
Pencil
Crayons, makers, or colored pencils
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Metal brad
What to Do:
1. Help your child brainstorm about different types of weather. Your
goal is to expand her language beyond calling the weather "hot" and
"cold" to descriptive adjectives such as rainy, sunny, snowy, windy,
cloudy, and humid. Keep a list or picture cues of the descriptors to
help jog her memory.
2. Cut a square piece of tag board or poster board to use as the base of
the weather spinner. Then, cut out an arrow shape to use as the
spinning tool.
3. Have your child divide the square into sections. The sections do not
need to be exactly equal sizes, but they should all radiate from the
center of the square. Tell her to fill each section with the name and
picture of each specific type of weather that she brainstormed. Keep
one section of the square blank.
4. Carefully puncture a hole through the center of the tag board arrow
as well as the center of the spinner's base and fold the edges of the
metal brad down to attach it. Make sure to attach it loosely enough so
that you can still spin the spinner with ease.
5. Hang the weather spinner by the door or a window in your entryway so
that your child can easily check on the weather and adjust the
spinner.
6. When a day arrives with a type of weather that she did not foresee,
such as a lightning storm or thick fog, have your child add that type of
weather to the blank section.
To get the most out of this activity, have her record her daily observations
in a notebook. At the end of a month or season, she can create a graph or
tally chart of the different types of weather that she examined.
Consider extending this activity even further by encouraging your child to
orchestrate a nightly weather report, discussing the day's weather and
making predictions for the following day.
Minute Math: How to Estimate Time
Second graders spend lots of time building skills for telling time. You can
expect plenty of worksheets with clocks to identify; but it's also important
for kids to get a feel for time. What does a minute feel like? An hour? This
fun game helps children learn to estimate the most basic unit of time--a
minute--without a clock. Instead, they will use repeated activities that each
last a minute to truly understand what fits into 60 seconds!
What You Need:
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Two players
Watch or clock with a second hand
What You Do:
1. Start this activity by letting your child know you will be playing a game
with time. Review with him how many seconds are in one minute. Tell
your child you'll be timing him to see how many activities he can do in
a minute, including jumping jacks, hopping on one foot, counting to ten,
and clapping his hands.
2. Using a clock or watch, time your child for one minute as he counts
how many jumping jacks he can do. Be sure to tell him when to begin
and stop counting.
3. Repeat Step 2 with each of the following activities: have your child
hop on one foot, count to 10, and clap his hands. As your child becomes
more used to the amount of time elapsed with these activities, have
him guess when one minute has elapsed as you time him.
Variation: Switch roles, and let your child be the timer while you count how
many of the above activities you can do in a minute. Your child will love
learning time this way with you
*Math activities found at education.com*