Introduction to Kindergarten Earth Science Weather
This Kindergarten Earth Science Weather lesson is jam-packed with so much information and an equal amount of fun! This lesson helps students study weather in a fun, engaging way. Topics include: clouds, storms, and emergency preparedness. For this lesson we completed two hands-on projects, a cloud in a jar (as seen in the picture below) and a tornado in a bottle.
-Next Generation Science Standard* K-ESS3-2
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Materials List for Kindergarten Earth Science Weather
–shaving cream
–blue food coloring
–pipette or a dropper
–duct tape
–glitter
–The Kids’ Book of Weather Forecasting by Mark Breen and Kathleen Friestad
–Kindergarten Earth Science lesson
Step 1: Download the Kindergarten Earth Science Weather Lesson from the worksheet
Here is a sample page from our worksheet for this lesson:
Step 2: Make a cloud in a jar
This idea came from the website Growing A Jeweled Rose. First you fill a clear jar with water, then squirt some shaving cream on top and drop blue food coloring into the “cloud.”
The blue color you see shows what happens when the water droplets in the cloud grow too large and heavy for the air to hold them up and they begin to drop to the ground.
The great thing about using shaving cream is that you can have a lot of fun playing with it when you are finished with the project!
Step 3: Make a tornado in a bottle
As a reference for this project, we used an awesome kids weather website called Weather Wiz Kids.
Put water about 2/3 of the way up in one of the bottles. Add glitter and a few drops of blue food coloring.
Use duct tape to hold the two bottles together. This must be very secure so that there are no leaks because you are going to be turning the bottles upside down like an hour glass.
Once you are sure the bottles are secure, turn it so the water is in the top bottle and give it a counter-clockwise swirl (that is the direction tornadoes spin in the northern hemisphere).
What you will see forming is a blue glittery vortex, which is a tornado. The glitter shows the debris the tornado picks up.
Here is a video showing our tornado in action!
Step 4: Complete the assessment from the Kindergarten Earth Science Weather Lesson
Here is a sample assessment page from our lesson:
Source:
NGSS Lead States. 2013. Next Generation Science Standards: For States, By States. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
*”Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) is a registered trademark of Achieve. Neither Achieve nor the lead states and partners that developed the Next Generation Science Standards were involved in the production of this product, and do not endorse it.”
