A Rainy Day
The lightning crackled and the thunder boomed. When the storm passed and left the pouring rain, my neighbor’s littles were out gathering eggs with their mom, playing in the rain. These were homeschooled children. They weren’t missing school or recess. I thought how different their lessons might be from the children I had taught sitting in a classroom under a prescribed curriculum. This mom and her children could seize the moment. They could embrace the rain and enjoy the day. My students and I would dread the no recess day.
What questions might children ask about storms, rain, and water? What learning opportunities might they have?
- What causes storms?
- How does changes in barometric pressure affect the weather?
- How fast does lightning travel?
- What is lightning?
- What is thunder?
- How fast does sound travel?
- How far away is a storm?
- How do we measure rainfall?
- Are there signs in nature to help us predict the weather?
When I taught, we had the children pretend to be lightning. They would quickly crouch down and jump us with a boom for thunder. Of course they were four and five year olds but it was a fun introduction to weather even if they couldn’t go out and splash.
As an older child, I was taught to count seconds between the lightning and the thunder to tell the distance of the storm. Truth or old wives’ tale?
Country folk taught their children several things to predict the weather.
- birds fly low when rain is coming
- daisies close up
- red sky at night sailor delight, red sky in the morning sailor take warning
We were even taught to count the cricket chirps in 14 seconds, then add 40 to get the approximate outside temperature.
Wouldn’t these be fun activities to record in a weather journal for a homeschooler? I found a few fun books to add to the lessons and perhaps give the student a start for more research. Remember how we were told Benjamin Franklin flew a kite with a key in a thunderstorm? Well, he really did! Click here to find books about this founding father and his other experiments. One of my favorites is How Ben Franklin Stole the Lightning. I might also check out The Ben Franklin Book of Easy Experiments.
– blog written by Gail Cartee
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