Storms Teach Science and Acts of Kindness

Storms Grab Children's Attention

Storms like hurricanes, tornadoes, and blizzards grab children’s attention and are excellent times for families to teach weather, geography, and how people help each other. Emergencies can bring out the best in people. One never knows how children can be inspired to become a scientist, meteorologist, first responder, builder, and medical person based on childhood teaching.

  Getting the facts

  Technology can be a useful tool that always needs to be monitored to protect children and to ensure the content is not too scary. However, if something is happening near an extended family member’s home, they will hear conversations and it is a good time to teach.

  There are many opportunities to use maps to teach the geography of the situation.  

Getting the Facts

The library has atlases for children. There are also placemats of maps of the world and the United States in local children’s stores and online at the Rainbow Resource Center for under $3.00 so children can see geography every day and you have an opportunity to grab a children’s map quickly.

Teaching Weather Facts

  Besides local news, the weather channel has many interesting maps and videos. You can select age appropriate ones, turn off the sound, and use your own commentary, if needed. There will be many examples of courageous rescues and acts of kindness and few minutes may be enough.  Your children may have many questions so this is a good time to discuss.

Very young children will be hearing about events and may draw their own scary false conclusions, unless you help them learn the facts. National Weather Service is an excellent source of information, videos, and pictures. You can Click 

Check Up-To-The-Minute Events

around the site to find exactly what you want.

  Books about weather and storms include: “Weather or Not” by Maryann Dobeck; “Fly Guy presents:Weather” by Tedd Arnold; “The Magic School Bus presents Wild Weather” by Sean Callery. Families can show some of the pictures and add their own simplified narration for young children. Older children will enjoy the creative presentation.  Some good online family teaching sites include weatherwizkids.com and weatherforkids.org. The Google maps site is an excellent example for older children to experience how technologists work with first responders to spread information and keep people safe.

Kindness

   There are many opportunities for families to teach how people pull together to help each other. Children will have opportunities to help give money and donate through schools, faith organizations, the Red Cross, Salvation Army, Scouts, Rotary and many other civic groups. Children can help gather and pack donated supplies.  These often can include children’s drawings of courage, strength, and love that may be just what people need for the challenge of recovery during the months and years ahead. For more see grandparentsteachtoo.blogspot.com and wnmufm.org/Learning Through the Seasons .

Photos: Fran Darling, fdarling fotos and http://www.weather.gov 

Weather Observation

Observing, investigating, and reporting the weather are good ways to nurture science thinking because weather affects play activities and clothing choices. By observing weather, many clothing arguments may be avoided.
What to do
Check out the weather every morning before breakfast to help plan for the day. Adults will be setting the stage for good breakfast conversation and building scientific vocabulary.
Check the temperature. Step outside or observe through a window. Will we need jackets, hats, and mittens today or can we dress for warm weather? Is it sunny or cloudy? Will we need to wear our sunglasses and hat?
Look at the sky. Is the sky really cloudy, partly cloudy, or clear? Are there clouds coming in? Observe the kinds of clouds. If the clouds are thick like a blanket and it’s rather gray, stratus clouds are holding lots of possible moisture.
If it’s a blue sky with some big white cotton ball cumulus clouds, it could be a nice day to play outside with proper clothing. If these puffy clouds are gray or black, we could have a storm.

If the sky is clear with just a few wispy cirrus clouds, we probably won’t have moisture.
Observe the trees. Is it really windy, a little breezy, or a calm day? By observing weather many clothing arguments are avoided.
What else can I do?
Children love to paint weather pictures to hang on the refrigerator. You can also draw clouds, sun, or raindrops on a calendar to report weather. Compare your observations and predictions with professional forecasters.
If children have questions, like how clouds block the sun or what causes wind, go to http://www.ask.com or Google®. Ask the librarian for help finding nonfiction (true) weather books with lots of colored pictures. Children also like Judi Barrett’s Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and Tomie de Paola’s The Cloud Book. Some children’s museums have a TV weather studio to play weather reporter.
Find more activities to help young children learn go to Learning Through the Seasons at: http://www.grandparentsteachtoo.org/ webpages or listen to these activities on the WNMU Radio 90 podcasts at: http://www.wnmufm.org/learningthroughtheseasons 
Illustrations by Mark Nowicki