Wonderful weather

Activity overview

Run the activity

1. You’re going to watch a short video. The aim isn't to find right answers, it's to explore ideas and find out what they know.

• Do they know what might happen based on the image?

2. After you've watched the video, lead a discussion with your class:

• What do the class know about the weather?
• What kinds of weather did you notice? 
• When is it normally hot/freezing cold?
• Which is your favourite weather and why?

3. Ask the class to describe what they saw using only one word.

Background science

The weather can be hot or cold, wet or dry on any particular day. Weather can change within minutes or hours, whereas our climate is the average weather conditions over 30 years. The video includes rain, wind, cloud, sun, thunder and lightning, hail stones, fog and snow.

The days are shorter in the winter months and temperatures are lower, often dipping below zero degrees overnight so that we see frosty landscapes in the morning.  Winter rain can become hail, sleet or snow. As the length of our days begins to increase, typically, the temperatures rise, and we have bright spring days- but there are often rainy days too. We have longer, sunnier days in the summer and temperatures can reach 20-30 degrees. However, especially after spells of hot and humid weather, thunder and lightning storms occur too. As the days begin to shorten again, autumnal weather includes a mixture of foggy mornings, wind, rain and clear spells.

We can use different tools to record the weather. For example, we record how much rainfall there is and how many days of sunshine. The Met Office hold data on climate for every region of the UK. This allows us to understand how our climate is changing over time.

We know our world has been getting hotter due to things humans are doing, such as the way we make energy, farm and cut down trees. This climate change is leading to more extreme weather and natural disasters. Read this blog for more information about the climate challenge.

Take it further

Discuss the weather every day and make a display in the classroom recording how the weather changes from day to day, month to month and according to the season. Take photos of the children throughout the year to allow them to compare what they were wearing in the different seasons. 

You could position a rain gauge outside, so that children can check the amount of rainfall each week or month. This video shows how to make a rain gauge out of a plastic bottle. The children could then make a simple pictogram or bar graph of the results. Similarly, you could check and record the temperature each day.  

For the children to see the wind, you could make a windsock to hang outside the classroom. Each child could make one to take home.

If you know the temperature is likely to fall below freezing overnight, the children could make ice mobiles which look lovely hanging in trees, or outside the classroom window. 

Watch

These BBC videos show typical at different times of the year.

Cross Curricular

The children could also have fun being weather forecasters and recording their own weather forecasts. This is one school’s example.

Positive action

We can help stop global warming by using less energy. You could introduce a 'traffic lights' colour code system for light switches in school like this school has.