Nothing amazes my kids more than the weather. Where we live the weather changes constantly. From very cold with snow and ice to warm windy days literally within days of each other. Living up north has inspired my kids to learn more about extreme weather and how it affects us.

This month for the unit study helper, I would like to share some fun weather crafts and experiments you can do with your children. These are geared towards about K-6 but could adapt for older and younger children. I will do this in a two part series. The first part will include crafts and the second part (check back tomorrow!!) will include experiments you can do that will enhance your weather study.

Make Your Own Clouds

Items Needed:

• Black Construction Paper
• White Paint

Instructions:

• Paint clouds with white paint onto paper.

Puffy Clouds


Items Needed:

• Blue Construction Paper
• White Cotton Balls

Instructions:

• Glue cotton balls onto construction paper in any cloud shape you’d like to.

Paint Your Own Hurricane

Items Needed:

• Blue Construction Paper
• Blue and White Paint
• Paintbrush
• Paper Plate

Instructions:

• Draw a hurricane with pencil on blue construction paper
• Using the blue, paint over the pencil outline
• With the white paint, paint around the blue to show clouds around the hurricane

3D Paper Hurricane

Items Needed:

• 2 Sheets of White Construction Paper or Poster Board
• Crayons or markers
• Scissors
• Pop Dot or Glue Dot
• Cotton Balls

Instructions:

• Color the white paper by forming land and water and color in
• With second piece of paper outline a hurricane shape and cut out.
• Color in and glue cotton ball onto hurricane by spreading pieces all over by breaking it apart
• Place a pop dot or glue dot on the back
• Place the hurricane wherever you would like it to go onto your picture

Tissue Paper Tornado


Items Needed:

• Sheet of Construction Paper- any color
• Sheet of Tissue Paper-any color
• Scrap Paper in different colors
• Optional- Pictures of items such as cars, houses, trees etc
• Glue

Instructions:

• Twist your tissue paper on the bottom half and flare out the top part
• Glue down onto construction paper and wait until dry
• You might need to press something heavy onto it while it dries
• Place pictures and scrap paper around your tornado as well as on it to show debris flying

Paper Tornado

Items Needed:

• 2 sheets of construction paper-different colors
• Glue
• Markers or Crayons

Instructions:

• Draw a picture on one of the construction paper sheets
• With other piece cut out a spiral shape making sure that the outside is large to have several swirls.
• After cut out unwind it and glue onto construction paper to form a tornado
• Optional- place a drawing or picture of items inside the tornado

Paper Snowflakes

Items Needed:

• Sheet of white construction paper
• Sheet of blue construction paper
• Glue
• Pencil

Instructions:

• Draw snowflake designs onto white paper
• Cut out and glue onto blue paper
• Label snowflakes

Borax Snowflake
Resource: http://chemistry.about.com/cs/howtos/ht/boraxsnowflake.htm

Items Needed:

• White Pipe Cleaner-1 for each snowflake
• Glass Jar with wide mouth
• String- about 6 inches
• Pencil
• Blue Food Coloring
• Box of Borax- Found in the laundry aisle
• Boiling Water

Instructions:

• Fill jar with boiling water
• Add borax to water one tablespoon at a time to dissolve
• Slowly stir in three tablespoons per one cup of water. Don’t worry if some remain at the bottom of the jar.
• Note: If you have three cups of water you will need 9 teaspoons of Borax.
• Add a small drop of blue food coloring, if desired, to give it a wintry look.
• Cut a pipe cleaner into three equal sections
• Twist pipe cleaner together in center.
• Fan out the ends to form a six sided snowflake shape
• Tie a piece of string to the tip of snowflake
• Tie the other end to a pencil
• Rest the pencil on the rim of jar and lower snowflake inside.
• It should be completely immersed in liquid but not touching the bottom of jar
• Allow the jar to sit undisturbed for a few days or until many crystals form

Desert Drought

Items Needed:

• Brown Construction Paper
• Orange Construction Paper
• Raffia
• Red and Yellow Construction Paper
• Glue
• Brown, Red, Orange crayons

Instructions:

• Make a sun by cutting out a circle with red construction paper
• Making the rays of the sun cut out long thin rectangles in both red and yellow paper
• Glue rays by alternating the colors behind the circle sun
• Glue onto corner of brown construction paper
• Cut orange paper in half and glue onto bottom half of brown paper with sun
• Using all your crayons, line them up in your hand and draw swirls and lines onto the bottom half of paper
• Glue raffia onto picture to illustrate a dry climate of dead plant life

Sun and Clouds Paper Suncatcher

Items Needed:

• Red, Yellow, Orange, Light Blue, Dark Blue and White Tissue Paper
• Black Construction Paper
• Scissors or Exacto Knife
• Glue

Instructions:

• Outline a cloud and sun shape on the black construction paper
• Cut out images with exacto knife or scissors
• Cut out rectangle shapes of tissue paper colors
• Using the blues and white tissue paper start gluing them to the sides of the construction paper working your way to the center of the image overlapping as you go.
• Do the same thing with the yellow, orange, and red tissue paper for the sun.
• Hang in a window when dry

Lightening At Night

Items Needed:

• 2 Sheets of Black Construction Paper
• Piece of white construction paper
• Yellow, White Crayons
• Pop Dots or Glue Dots

Instructions:

• Trace out a city scene on one of the black sheets of construction paper
• Cut them out
• Draw windows on the buildings using the yellow crayon
• Using both yellow and white crayon draw swirls, lines and shapes onto other black construction paper
• Draw and cut out white cloud
• Draw and cut out lightening bolt, color yellow and glue onto cloud
• With pop dots or glue dots glue city scene to bottom of paper and cloud on the top right or left of the paper
• With your white crayon draw lightening bolts coming from the top of the paper next to the cloud.

Craft projects were designed with the ideas from Helena Public School in Montana. They had their crafts displayed at the local science museum and I used these ideas to make the above crafts with the exception of the borax snowflake.

Books to Use:

• Weather Mania by Michael A. DiSpezio
• Janice VanCleave’s Weather-Spectacular Science Projects
• Twister on Tuesday by Mary Pope Osborne
• Flakes & Flurries: A Book About Snow
• Magic School Bus- Lost in the Snow
• Experiment With Weather by Scholastic
• Rain by Gail Saunders-Smith
• I Face The Wind by Vicki Cobb
• Hurricanes by Seymour Simon
• Gusts and Gales: A Book about Wind by Josepha Sherman

Lynn is a blessed wife to a wonderful husband of 12 years, a mom to three children, ranging from 15 to almost 8, and in the process of expanding their family through adoption. They are in their fifth year of homeschooling, using a hands on/eclectic approach to learning. You can find out more by visiting her blogs @ Learning By Living and Ladybug Chronicles.