the weather...and other homeschooling

This week, Finn and I started a weather unit that I intend to last for at least a month, maybe longer depending on how interested he remains and how much we cover during that time. We started by printing out weather cards and laminating them. We attach them each day (or more frequently depending on weather changes) with velcro.

I also found this sweet weather set on etsy several weeks ago. And if you hurry, you might be able to get this set at a giveaway over at Natural Suburbia! This set is great for reading stories or books about weather and play acting the reading as you go along.


We also found this set of cloud cards. Right now we are just working with the control chart and comparing our clouds to the ones we see in the sky.


Eventually we might print out the cards with the matching names if Finn is interested in learning the cloud names.


We have a few great weather books that have been assisting us in our weather journey. Down Comes the Rain is an excellent book for explaining the rain cycle. Oh Say Can You Say What's the Weather Today? is a typical Cat in the Hat learning book full of fun rhymes about various weather events. The DK Weather book has mostly served as a discussion point about many of the pictures. (There's nothing like driving out the desire to learn about a subject by reading a book many years ahead of it's appropriateness.)


Finn noticed in one of the weather books it mentioned that pinecones would close up in the rain. We checked some pinecones in our yard this morning after an overnight shower, and they were still open. We must have not gotten much rain though because the pinecones were almost completely dry.


So we decided to pick a couple of our pinecones and place them in a container of water to see if they would close when wetter. Sure enough, when we checked on them an hour later they were completely closed!


Finn put together this small weather station that I found on sale last year. We positioned it so that the arrows were pointing in the right direction and discovered that our light breeze this morning was blowing toward the south. We also checked the temperature several times to see how it rose from around 50 early this morning to 65 at lunchtime.


In addition to learning about weather, Finn found this book of lessons on drawing cars at our local used bookstore. He's mostly tracing at this point, but I think the pencil control is probably good for him. He's drawn a dozen cars just in the last two days.


Finn has also recently realized that he can follow a Lego instruction booklet to complete a set on his own. (This was first achieved when he was rummaging in the Lego table after waking up at 5 am one morning a few weeks ago and being told to go "find something quiet to do!")


He's been saving birthday and other holiday money for Legos, and we finally made a trip to buy some.


He was so proud to build the car and firetruck in his set all by himself! An even greater accomplishment, I think, was that he didn't get frustrated when figuring out that he'd put a piece in the wrong place at the beginning of the fire truck instructions requiring him to take it all apart about halfway through the process. He just did it. My big boy!