Part of our morning ritual in kindergarten is to check the weather outside. Someone’s classroom job is to open the door and peek his or her head out as the class sings the weather watcher song that is to the tune of Frère Jacques (I did not create the weather song). After, the kiddo moves an arrow on our weather dial to show what the weather is like outside.
Weather watcher, weather watcher
What do you see, what do you see?
Tell us what the weather’s like, tell us what the weather’s like
Won’t you please, won’t you please!
Let’s Graph the Weather!
After the weather reporter shares the weather on the dial, we briefly talk about the weather in comparison to the day before. It’s time I take our discussion to another level. For the rest of the school year, our weather reporter (new student each week) will graph the weather in this spreadsheet.
christinepinto.com/weathergraphing
I merged two of Alice Keeler’s resources to create this template: tinyurl.com/charttheweather AND alicekeeler.com/templatetab
Every day for a whole month, the weather reporter will fill the cell (by typing anything into the desired cell) and the color of the cell will automatically fill. This will help us to keep track of how the weather has been over a longer period of time. Along the way we can discuss our observations and which type of weather has been charted the most or the least. Once we have two months completed, we can compare and contrast the two months.
This new weather recording ritual aligns with this Next Generation Science Standard:
K-ESS2-1. Use and share observations of local weather conditions to describe patterns over time.
Get Involved with Another Class
I teach in southern California, where it is usually sunny. I would love to have my class connect with another class in a different region who also charts the weather, so then we can collaborate and expand the weather discussion. Students can discuss if the weather is similar or different…which leads to the kids wondering “how come their weather is different from ours?”
If you are interested in having your students share about the weather with another class, please fill out your info in the spreadsheet below and contact another teacher you would like to share with!