If you’re teaching a weather unit for science or just enjoy thematic teaching, this post will be a great help. Our fourth grade students spend one quarter studying cloud types, weather tools, and storms. I love pairing with the classroom teachers to help support my students. There are so many great resources you can use to explore different types of storms both in fiction and nonfiction texts.
Links to Fun Weather Unit Ideas
The first place I look for teaching ideas is Pinterest. For many of the themes I’ve blogged about, I’ve developed Pinterest boards. Below, you’ll see my board of weather resources which I think come in handy. Feel free to repin to your own boards as you plan. You can look under “thematic teaching ideas” for the others.
book titles for your weather unit
There are many are many wonderful nonfiction options for your weather unit. Our students are expected to know cloud types, weather tools and terms, the water cycle, and about storm types, and I just love the complexity of Seymour Simon and Gail Gibbons, and the simplicity of National Geographic readers for teaching science concepts.
Pairing nonfiction with fiction is always a great idea when trying to build a theme, so I have also selected a group of my favorite fictional books with a weather theme. Of these, I personally just love Thunder Cake, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and Brave Irene. At the end of the post, I’ll link up resources you can use with these books.
Weather Close Reading Bundle for your weather unit
The students in my fourth grade groups are studying weather right now in science, and I put together this set of Close Reading materials. The set includes articles about meteorology tools and terms, cloud types, and storms with graphic organizers and related writing prompts. Here is a preview of the set.
In addition to these resources, weather lends itself to poetry writing. Students can create similes and metaphors, and idioms to go with your weather unit. They can write limericks or rhyming poetry, and even work on sensory words. I made this poetry set to the left and shared it in a previous post about Concept of Word for young readers. If you’d like a poem to use as an example of what your students might write, it might work well even though it’s intended for kinders.
Finally, I thought I’d share a few video clips I found on Youtube. There are so many great resources available including weather related books and video programs. Here are two, but there are many more. Be sure to check Youtube or Teacher Tube for great interactive clips. The first one I am sharing is about the types of clouds and the other is about seasons, weather tools, signs, and more.
Cloud Types and Weather Basics
Best for the Primary Grades
Activities to go with your weather unit
There are so many great weather resources that you can find on TPT that will help your students with this unit. I have shared quite a few this week on my Facebook page, and I don’t want you to miss those, so I’ll post them here too. Definitely pin or save them for later. There are so many wonderful units included. This interactive notebook set is fabulous for demonstrating vocabulary. Doodling has become a wonderful tool for students to not only show their understanding, but to provide them with a calming outlet.
This set includes Water Cycle task cards. Task cards are so versatile in our instruction. They work wonderfully for small group instruction, in a game setting, or as review. This set from Promoting Success will be lots of fun for your students.
For many reasons, having a Weather Word Wall is a great idea. Students can use the words within their writing and refer to them as they are learning the new content. I love that this is a Print and Go resource.
Weather unit Websites
I am ending with one of my favorite freebies. I just love the graphics used by All Students Can Shine, and I think your students will enjoy writing this class book. For older learners, you might modify with a class poetry book.
Related Links:
What are your favorite weather themed books, ideas, or resources? Please share your links below in the comments.
I love having my students learn about storms. They are so intrigued by tornadoes and hurricanes that they just won't stop researching! It's great. Thanks for sharing this great post! 🙂
They are fascinated by them. I'm using a book from our Benchmark Leveled Readers (R or S) called Severe Weather. One of the boys told me he really loved the book. He said, "Isn't it amazing how much destruction hurricanes cause?" So cute!
Great resources Carla! Thanks for sharing.
You're welcome! I expect we'll duplicate at some point, Teresa, but so far, we've complimented each other well! Thanks for linking up this week.