Weather Patterns Across the US

Ever wondered what the weather is like in other parts of the US?  We have.  We are going to research each region and find out what the weather is like in different parts of that region.  We split up into our learning groups and each looked at a region on the United States map.  (We know about the regions from Social Studies last nine weeks.)  Each group is responsible for researching the weather in a city in the North, South, East, and West of their region.  This investigation is going to take us a couple of days so bare with us.  We'll post along the way.  :)  Here are some pics of us getting started today.

Of course when we finished we had to go out and observe the weather.  It was beautiful outside today!  We could definitely get used to this weather!

Observing the Weather and Clouds

Today we observed the weather.  We used what we had learned about clouds to classify the clouds today.  We noticed that the clouds were thin and stringy (kind of like a spider web).  They are scattered around and are high in the sky.  We know this means they are called "cirrus" clouds.

Exploring Seasons

Today in Science we explored the four seasons.  We talked about the four seasons and researched to find out what the weather is like during each of them.  We found out lots of cool information!  Did you know that Summer has the longest and hottest days of all the seasons?  Did you know that Spring usually begins around March 20th or 21st.  (We're super excited that that's not that far away!)  Did you know that Fall has lots of storms because of the changes in the hot and cold air?  We found out lots of cool stuff!  Check out pictures of us busy at work...

Researching

Sorry it's been a while since we've posted.  We've been super busy!  Since our last post, we learned how to classify clouds.  We sorted pictures of clouds into groups and talked about their characteristics.  We learned about cirrus, cumulus, and stratus clouds.  We'll try to add more about that later.

On to today's activity...

Today we did lots of research using our lap tops!  Mrs. Gaston was a little concerned at first as to how we would handle it but she says we did a great job!  Today, we learned about "precipitation".  We found out that it is "liquid and solid particles that fall from the sky".  We researched to find out about different kinds of precipitation.  Meteorologists need to know these things you know!  Here are some pictures of us doing our research.  (Please excuse the blurry photos...we had some focus issues.)

We did most of our research on "WeatherWizKids.com".  We LOVE that site!  They have lots of cool information, experiments, and weather games!

"Google" is always a trusty resource when you need to find information.

Stay tuned for more weather adventures this week!

Observing Clouds

Have you ever noticed how clouds look different?  We brainstormed a list of ideas about clouds.  We have noticed that some clouds are fluffy, some flat, some long, some short, some white, some dark, some of them are scattered in the sky, and some are close together.  We know alot about the way clouds look.  We went out to observe the clouds today but there was a little problem...we could only see clouds in the distance.  There weren't any close to us.  We didn't let this stop us!  We observed the clouds from a distance and will observe them again another day soon. 

When we finished observing, we came in and made cloud pictures of our own.  We used cotton balls and made a model of a cloud that we've seen before.  After we finished, we wrote about our cloud.  Check out these awesome clouds!

 

Check back tomorrow...we'll be classifying clouds!