Clouds!

There were terrible storms last Tuesday at school, which caused a tree to fall on a power line, which thus cut off power to our school during a tornado drill for an hour and 10 minutes! Phew! That was the LONGEST tornado drill I EVER hope to encounter! What a day! Inspired by the day's events, the kids REALLY wanted to know about weather and storms! So, we watched the radar, learned a few tips to help understand it, and learned about clouds! I used some of the lesson I did last year with clouds, but added a bit more for the older kids. I read Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs to the kids, and we talked about the story elements and the kids who had watched the movie were dying to do a class double bubble comparing the movie and the book. It is such a classic book! We learned about the different altitudes of clouds by comparing the height to a giant. We also saw a Bill Nye about storms (I LOVE Bill Nye!). After all of this, we got to do an experiment making our own cumulonimbus! I got the idea from Pinterest and had to try it! You need a mason jar, water, shaving cream, and LIQUID food coloring. Fill the jar half way with water, cover most of the top of the water with shaving cream leaving some holes, then put several drops in and watch the cumulonimbus rain!!!! The kids loved it! During this experiment we went through the Scientific Process as well. Here are some of the rain clouds!!!!

Clouds!

Well, one of my good friends is getting her Masters in Atmospheric Sciences (So meteorology), and she mainly works with/studies clouds!! So, she was sweet enough to come in and present some information about the clouds and help explain the different kinds of clouds to the kids! She read a book to the kids first (It Looked Like Spilt Milk) and then we showed a clip of a tornado to get the kids excited! Then she showed us different kinds of clouds and we taught the kids the altitude of the clouds by comparing it to our bodies. We imagined we were giants and the cirrus clouds are by our heads, the cumulus clouds are by our chest and tummies, and stratus clouds are by our feet. Then we watched a video about tornado safety and the kids were intrigued and learned so much! As a culminating activity, we made cotton ball clouds and one of the other teachers made a rain cloud with the steps of a thundercloud. Here are some pictures!