Names: Kelly Tidd and Nichole Brown
GLCE: E.ES.01.31 - Identify the tools that might be used to measure temperature, precipitation, cloud
cover, and wind.
Lesson Title: Describing Weather
Lesson Overview:
Students will be able to:
Identify a thermometer, rain gauge, and wind sock as instruments used to describe weather.
Use their senses to determine cloud cover and wind speed.
Use weather tools to create their own weather forecasts.
List of Materials:
Thermometers
Rain gauges
Wind sock
Simple weather forecast display
Engage:
Start by having a class discussion about weather asking guiding questions such as:
- What is weather?
- How do you describe weather?
-
How do you use your senses when describing the weather?
Students will then watch a video based on different types of weather (rainy, sunny, hot, cold, dry, wet) to
learn some of the weather adjectives.
Set up a display table with all of the weather instruments (rain gauge, thermometer, wind vane or sock)
Explore:
Take the kids outside and introduce the thermometer, rain gauge, and wind sock. Tell the students what
each instrument is for and how it’s used. Explain that your senses are important for describing weather,
and that we can use our eyes to tell if it’s cloudy, partly cloudy, or clear and our sense of touch to tell if
it’s calm, breezy, or windy, raining or snowing.
Explain:
Present students with a simple weather forecast and ask students to discuss what weather tools might have
been used to make the forecast.
Elaborate:
Set up stations outside, one for each weather instrument. You might want to add a little water to the rain
gauge so students can see what happens when it has rain in it. Divide students into small groups and hand
out worksheets that will have the students record the temperature (hot, warm, cool, cold), inches of
precipitation (rounded to whole numbers), wind direction (N, S, E, W), and cloud cover (all clouds, half
clouds, little clouds, no clouds).
After the activity, take a class consensus about what they saw and have the students make their own
weather forecast.
Evaluation:
The students will be assessed by their level of participation and by the accuracy of their weather
worksheets.