Thank you to Clay for recommending this page on The Ultimate Survival Food LIst: http://seasonedcitizenprepper.com/feed-a-family-of-4-for-1-year-for-less-than-300/
CLOUD IN A BOTTLE:
Materials: a large 2 L empty plastic pop bottle (including the lid), matches (for adult use only), warm water
Step 1: Fill the plastic pop bottle 1/3 of the way full of warm water and screw the lid back on. At this point you should notice water vapor in the bottle (if not, then your water is not hot enough and you will need to try again).
Step 2: Next have your child squeeze the pop bottle and observe. There is nothing to observe at this point.
Step 3: Next unscrew the lid but don't remove it yet (have your child do that when you are ready). Light a match (adult step) and then open the bottle and drop the lit match into the bottle and then quickly screw the lid back on!
Step 4: Have your child squeeze the bottle again. This time you should notice that when you release the squeeze a cloud will appear in the bottle and when you squeeze it disappears only to reappear again when you release. (It's hard to see with our green bottle).
FUN FACTS:
Print out myFun Facts About Weather Worksheet and as you read and learn about the weather online or from books you have borrowed from the library write your favourite fun and interesting facts on the chart. Have every family member participate.
MATCHING:
Print out a copy of my Weather Instruments Matching Worksheet and together as a family see if you can match the instrument with its correct.
To see if you have the correct answers check here for the Matching Weather Instruments Key.
WEATHER CHART:
Print out a copy of my Weather Chart and have your child fill it in for a week. Have smaller children draw pictures of the weather using simple weather symbols (sun, cloud, rain cloud, lightning cloud, snowy cloud, wind blowing) or give your child stickers to stick to each spot.
NOTE: This would also be an interesting seasonal activity as you could have your child fill the weather chart out at the start of each season or even once a month. Talk about what your child observed on the chart.
STORMY DAY/NIGHT ACTIVITY:
LEARNING ACTIVITIES
COUNT THE STORM:
The next time you encounter a storm try this technique to gauge how far away it is.
After you see a flash of lightning, count the number of seconds until you hear the thunder (you can use a stop watch or count “One-Mississippi, Two-Mississippi, Three-Mississippi…). For every five seconds the storm is about one mile away. Divide the number of seconds you count by 5 and you will get the number of miles away the storm is. This always helped my nervous son when he was little as he liked to tell when the storm was approaching but more importantly when it was going away!
Thank you to Veronica who volunteers for an after school program. Some of her kids in her group wanted to contribute to our website and suggested this article about weather vanes: https://www.alansfactoryoutlet.com/a-guide-to-weather-vanes
For General Sites try these...
NASA = https://climatekids.nasa.gov/menu/weather-and-climate/
weather Wiz Kids = http://www.weatherwizkids.com/
Web Weather for Kids = https://eo.ucar.edu/webweather/
weather For Kids = http://weatherforkids.org/
A big thank you to Boy Scout Anthony (aged 10) from Orlando, Florida, for giving us this link to a guide of various weather science experiments. And Congratulations on obtaining your Weather Merit Badge: https://www.mjjsales.com/weather-experiments-for-students-2.html
NOTE: Why does this happen? The jar is full of warm air which represents the moist warm air in the atmosphere. The ice represents the colder air high in the atmosphere. This cold air causes the water vapor (steam) in the jar (air) to condense which forms precipitation that falls to the ground.
We love receiving emails from great people from all over who have recommended websites for our Weather Theme Day.
I love hearing from everyone! Thank you so much!
Copyright 2012. Family Theme Days. All rights reserved.
TYPES OF CLOUDS:
For this activity you will need a book about clouds (see book recommendations here or find your own at the library) or if you cannot find a book here is a website with information about clouds for kids: http://eo.ucar.edu/webweather/cloud3.html
There are four main types of clouds: Cirrus, Cumulus, Nimbus and Stratus. Print out my Types of Clouds Worksheet and together as a family read about clouds from a nonfiction book about weather. Fill in the chart by drawing a picture of what each of the four main types of clouds look like and then by writing down facts about each type of cloud.
If your child is really interested in the types of clouds print out this supplementary printable: More Clouds Worksheet and have him/her write about and draw some different types of clouds (not the four main types) like Cumulonimbus and Cirrocumulus clouds..
MORE WEATHER RELATED EXPERIMENTS:
There are so many different weather related experiments. You can even make your own barometer.
Find some online...
Also check out this book for young scholars: Weather Detectives: Fun-Filled Facts, Experiments, and Activities for Kids!, by Mark Eubank and illustrated by Mark A. Hicks, Gibbs Smith Publisher, 2004.
TEMPERATURE:
Print out my Thermometers: Reading Temperature Worksheet and have your child colour in what he/she thinks the thermometer would look like for cool, cold, warm and hot temperature. I have only put zero on this worksheet and no numbers to that you can do that yourself to make it suitable for either Celsius or Fahrenheit temperature readings.
Weather
ATMOSPHERE ART:
Create a beautiful striped illustration of the atmosphere using water colours. Have your child paint a small strip of brown for the earth, then a slightly larger stripe for the troposphere, then the same sized strip for the stratosphere. Next have your child paint the mesosphere using a darker blue and slightly larger stripe. Then have your child use purple to create the thermosphere stripe the same size as the dark blue one or slightly larger. Lastly, have your child paint the exosphere in grey and if there is still room on the paper he/she can paint a black strip for space. When the colours dry you can have your child write the names of the different layers of the atmosphere onto each stripe.
NOTE: You can also add pictures or clip art to the layers to show some info about each. For instance the troposphere can have a kite, the stratosphere an airplane, the mesosphere a meteor since this is where meteors burn out, and the thermosphere can have a satellite and some aurora borealis or australis.
Special thanks to Barbara and her kids Bethany and Samuel
for this link to an article about Home Preparation Tips for Weather Emergencies: https://www.angieslist.com/articles/home-preparation-tips-weather-emergencies.htm
WEBSITES:
MAKE IT:
WHAT CAUSES A THUNDERSTORM:
Materials: warm water, ice cube tray, liquid food colouring, clear shoe box or other clear container that can hold water.
Step 1: (PREPARATION BEFORE EXPERIMENT TIME) Make some blue ice cubes. Freeze water in your ice cube tray with blue food colouring in it. This usually takes a few hours to freeze.
Step 2: Fill your clear container with warm (not hot) water. If the water is not warm you will end up with a failed experiment and purple water).
Step 3: Add a few drops of red food colouring to the water on one side of the container. Then add one or two blue ice cubes to the other side.
Step 4: Watch what happens next.
SIMULATION: RAIN IN A JAR 1:
Fill a jar or a cup with water. Put shaving cream on top to represent the cloud. Explain that when clouds get really heavy with water, it rains! Then put drops of blue food colouring on top of the cloud (shaving cream), and watch it rain as the blue colouring streaks downward.
Here are some little learning videos I found on You Tube for kids of various ages...
PRINTABLES:
Thank you to Clay who works with SPC Survival for suggesting this page on Emergency Food Kits written by Dan Carpenter from Murray, Utah.: http://seasonedcitizenprepper.com/feed-a-family-of-4-for-1-year-for-less-than-300/
Thank you to Melissa from the UK for this suggested sight on Flood Planning and Preparation: https://www.polygongroup.com/en-GB/resources/flood-preparation-planning/
She also recommends this Preparation and Safety Guide for Travelers: https://www.postcardtravelinsurance.co.uk/vacation-disaster-preparation-safety-guide/
SNOW RULER or RAIN RULER:
Materials: Wooden chopstick (many supermarkets sell sushi and you can get wooden chopsticks from them), markers (we used permanent), a ruler, clear nail polish to paint over.
Step 1: Since we live in Canada we measured in centimeters but you could do this in inches if you like. We measured and marked along the chop stick for every centimeter. We choose a pattern of colours before hand (my son had done patterning in school so it was a bit of a math review).
Step 2: On the other side we wrote out the numbers (this is not pictured in the photo). The marker leaked a bit and the numbers weren’t very clear but they were useable.
Step 3: Then we used clear nail polish to paint one side at a time to make it water proof (we let it dry on wax paper and then proceeded to paint each side this way). I thought it was a brilliant idea at first but saw that the nail polish did make the colours leak a bit! That said, it is a water proof stick so the idea worked functionally at least!
Step 4: Stick in the ground at the first sign of snow and then you can measure to see how much you get!
NOTE: If you live in an area that does not get snow you can use this as a Rain Gauge by setting the stick up in a large rimmed jar.
NOTE: Why does this represent a thunderstorm? the Blue water from the melting ice cube is the cold front, heading toward the red water (warm front). when the two meet the cold air pushes the warm air up and that is unstable air, which results in a thunderstorm.
EXPERIMENTS:
NOTE: Why does this happen? The first thing needed to make a cloud is water vapour and the warm water in the bottle provides this. Squeezing the bottle represents the warming that occurs in the atmosphere. When the squeeze is released that represents the cooling that happens in the atmosphere which is representative of a drop in air pressure. The smoke from the match provides the dust or other particles in the air that help form a cloud.
STORM SAFETY BRAINSTORM
Print out my Family Brainstorm Worksheet for Storm Safety and together as a family write down ways to keep safe in a storm or ways to prepare before a storm. Simple things like don’t go swimming in a storm, or dress properly for snow would work for this chart but this activity would be especially helpful if you live in an area that often has extreme storms like blizzards, tornados, floods etc. as you can come up with an emergency plan together. You can use this to help create an emergency preparedness kit, to write down a list of emergency phone numbers, to go over where to go in case of an emergency storm etc.
SIMULATION: RAIN IN A JAR 2:
Materials: An empty jar, hot steamy water (adult help), plastic wrap, an elastic band, ice cubes.
Step 1: (Parent step) Pour the hot steamy water into the jar until it is about 1/3 filled.
Step 2: (Parent step) Carefully place plastic wrap on top of the jar to seal it and wrap the elastic band around the rim to keep the plastic wrap in place.
Step 3: Wait a minute and then place some ice cubes on top of the plastic wrap.
Step 4: Observe the inside of the jar to see what happens! NOTE: You should notice streaks of water running down the side of the jar and dripping from the plastic wrap.