Weather is a complex and fascinating topic to teach in the preschool years. There are many ways to teach it. I've included just a handful of ways I chose to incorporate this unit in our classroom. First is a visual representation of how clouds store up the rain drops and then let them fall down to earth. As you can see, the children loved it!
Some other hands on ways to teach weather concepts are with the always popular vinegar-baking soda volcano. Maybe that's a bit of a stretch with weather. But volcano eruptions cause earthquakes and that is kind of like weather? 🤔 We also did the two soda bottle tornado. We did instant snow, practiced blowing up balloons for the concept of wind, had a fake snowballs outside. We experimented with a few things in front of a table fan while exploring wind. Our art included ice painting, rain painting, and snow painting.
For ice painting I put a few drops of liquid water color in an ice cube tray and then water. Then freeze it with a popsicle stick. Have the kids paint when the cubes form.
Snow paint is 2 parts kosher salt with 1 part warm water on dark paper.
Rain paint is having the children paint regularly on the easel and then have them spray their artwork.
And the spin art I thought was fitting for describing a cyclone.
I am no doubt the only person in Arizona with a 6th Rain Stick carved from the Amazon Rain Forest. But there is nothing but the absolute best at Teacher Stacey's Playground! I'd say my desert children enjoyed the indoor rainstorm!
And while this child (my youngest this year) might not be able to say words such as "precipitation, condensation, or cumulonimbus" I think he can communicate to all of us that science is amazing!
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