Weather Mini Books: Thunderstorms and Tornadoes

During our week-long Weather mini-theme we learned about the different types of weather (rain, hail, snow, sleet, freezing rain), the types of clouds, storms (blizzard, tornado, hurrricane), and how to stay safe during certain types of weather. We also did some fun literature based writing activies about what they saw in the clouds.  They created a picture in the sky using torn construction paper.

I only had my "Kinds of Clouds" mini-book this week for the students to add to their independent reading book baskets and wanted something more.  I didn't make these mini books until after the theme was over, but will plan to use these next year.  I really liked having something that my first graders could read on their own after they'd heard a read-aloud story.  Here are two books that I wrote about storms that I know my first graders would encounter.

You can purchase this 2 book set HERE at my TPT store.

"What is a Thunderstorm?"
--A thunderstorm has very big clouds that are full of water.
--Rain falls from the dark gray clouds.
--Lightning shoots from the thunder clouds.  It makes flashes of light in the sky.
--Thunder is the big boom you hear when the clouds bump together.
--You see the lightning before you hear the thunder.
--Sometimes thunderstorms bring strong winds and hail.
--Sometimes thunderstorms bring a tornado.  Go to a safe place if there is a tornado.

"What is a Tornado?"
--Tornadoes are a swirling cloud that touches the ground.
--Warm air rises up into the cumulonimbus clouds.
--The warm air meets the cool air in the cloud, and it starts to rain or hail.
--If the up and down moving air starts to spin, a funnel cloud is formed.
--A funnel cloud can form when there is a thunderstorm.
--It becomes a tornado when it touches the ground.
--Go to the basement of your house if there is a tornado.

Kinds of Clouds Mini Book

This year for our Weather Unit, I'm going to attempt to teach a little bit about the different cloud types.  We'll see how it goes.  After drawing my Clouds Doodles clip art set, I decided to write this little mini book.  I focused on the basic cloud types (cumulus, stratus, nimbus, and cirrus).  I figured it was pointless to go into the combination clouds...I can hardly keep them straight myself.  What I want is for my students to notice the different cloud formations and what they might mean.  Last year we did a cute little cloud activity where they created different types of cloud pictures out of cotton balls and wrote about what they saw when they looked up in the sky.  This year I might try it with the shaving cream/glue paint mixture and see how that one goes, too!  (Mainly because I HATE touching cotton balls...one of those weird quirks about me.)

This "Kinds of Clouds" mini book tells about the basic clouds types and is written for early readers.  Pictures clues will provide help with the text.  Here is the text:

• There are many kinds of clouds.
• Clouds tell what the weather will be.
• Cumulus clouds are fluffy and white.  They are low to the ground.
• Cumulus clouds mean good weather.
• Nimbus clouds are dark gray clouds.  They bring rain, hail, sleet, or snow.
• Cumulonimbus clouds are the tallest clouds.  They bring a thunderstorm.
• Stratus clouds are like a gray blanket.  They bring drizzle.
• Cirrus clouds are high in the sky.  They are wispy and smoky.  They are made of ice.
• Cirrus clouds are called a "mare's tail" because they look like a horse's tail.

You can find this book HERE at  my TPT store.  Check out the thumbnail below:

Clouds Riddles and Types of Clouds Poster

This last weekend I finished up a Clouds Doodles digital clip art set thinking I would like to teach a little bit about the different types of clouds.  So I decided to create this Cloud Riddles activity.  As I was making it, I realized that it was hard for ME to tell the difference among and remember the names of all the different types of clouds.  How in the world would my first graders EVER remember the differences?  They just won't!  Once I started I needed to finish making this.  I WILL probably use the last page, which includes a poster of the lower, mid, and higher leverl clouds to just show the kids the different types and where in the sky they would see them. 

If you are an upper level teacher and teach about the different cloud types, this is just for you!  You can purchase this Clouds Riddles/Types of Clouds Poster set HERE at my TPT store.

Clouds Doodles

Woke up this morning thinking about an upcoming unit and decided to whip up this clip art set, since we're off until next Tuesday for Easter Vacation.  I'm not sure what I want to do differently this year during our weather unit, but I'd like to talk a little bit about the different type of clouds and what kind of weather they bring...? 

Clouds Doodles digital clip art set includes 10 types of clouds in BW and full-color filtered images:

Cumulus
Stratus
Cumulonimbus
Nimbostratus
Altostratus
Cirrostratus
Cirrus
Altocumulus
Cirrocumulus
Stratocumulus

Where you can find this set:
My TPT store HERE
My TN store HERE

Weather Cut Apart Sentences

I think I finally finished the last set of cut-apart sentences for our themes for the year!  Here are some sentences that we can choose from for our Weather and the World Around Us theme.  I simplified some of the sentences from the Weather Vocabulary book that I created last year. 

Sentences included:
--What will the weather be like today?
--It rains when the cloud is full of water.
--Lightning is a flash of light that comes from the sky.
--Thunder is the big boom you hear when clouds bump together.
--Tornadoes are a swirling cloud in the shape of a funnel.
--Big chunks of ice that fall from the sky are called hail.
--A snowflake is an ice crystal with six points.
--A thermometer is what we use to check the temperature.
--A weather man tells what the weather will be.
--The wind is when the air moves.
--Sleet is when there is rain mixed with snow.
--A hurricane is like a tornado in the ocean.

You can find this cut apart sentences set HERE at my TPT store.

 

I would LOVE your feedback!  Thanks for stopping by!

 

Weather Word Wall Vocabulary Cards

We put together some basic word wall cards of the weather words that we use when teaching about weather.  Students love grabbing these word wall cards from the pocket chart during writing time.  I think I had posted previously about our Weather Words pocket chart.  Those word wall cards were in D'Nealian font...next year we are probably going away from this and wanted to have a set of cards that wouldn't confuse firsties with the tails and loops.  You can find them at out TPT store HERE. 

Christine is working on some Weather and Storm Facts Posters...be sure to stop back soon and check those out!

Weather Vocabulary Book

A week or so ago we posted our Weather Dictionary freebie through Google Docs.  We made that book the first year we did our Weather theme...and we realized that its just a bit "too much" for first graders.  Too many facts and just wasn't "first grade friendly".  So I decided to make a new vocabulary book using the basic weather terms that they would hear in their "real world".  I used my Weather Doodles clip art to make this book.  Vocabulary words included:  weather, clouds, rain, lightning, tornadoes, hail, snow, thunder, temperature, weather man, rain gauge, sleet, wind.

If you are interested in purchasing this vocabulary book or any of our other vocabulary book creations, check out our TPT store.  This vocabulary book can be found HERE at our TPT store.

You can find my clip art at our TPT store, at my Etsy Shop, or at my Teacher's Notebook gallery.

"Teacher's Pet" font by www.kevinandamanda.com.

Weather Doodles Clip Art and FREEBIE Tornado

We finished up with our Weather unit last week and I didn't quite get my Weather Doodles clip art done for that unit.  But now we'll have the clip art to revamp and create new stuff.  I found it hard to find the images I wanted in the public domain, which brought me here...

Included in this clip art combo pack are black and white and colored PNG digital files:  raincoat girl, raincoat boy, weather man, radar map, lightning bolt, cloud, lightning cloud, rain cloud, windy cloud, sun, rainbow, tornado, hail, umbrella, thermometer cold, thermometer hot, rain drops, snowflake.

You can find this clip art combo pack:
At our TPT store HERE.
Carrie's Etsy Shop:  Clip Art by Carrie on Etsy
Teacher's Notebook:  Clip Art by Carrie on Teacher's Notebook

I would love your feedback!  Please see my terms of use for using Clip Art by Carrie in projects for commercial resale on TPT or TN.

Here is your tornado FREEBIE:

Thanks for stopping into our blog!  Not sure what I might be doodling next...I'm thinking space and planets.

Weather Words

This year we have made our theme bulletin board interactive and its wonderful! Students utilize our word wall pocket chart all the time during their independent writing. It has really helped those kids who can't seem to think of something to write about. I always encourage kids to write first before they go get the word from the pocket chart. "Try first and check later!" I always hated using a word wall because of this reason...kids always copied and never really tried on their own.  But I love using the theme word wall pocket chart.
Today we introduced a lot of weather "vocabulary" using our Weather word wall pocket chart. Below is a picture of our Weather word wall.  The weather vocabulary cards came from a site called K-3 Teacher Resources (www.k-3teacherresources.com).  There are tons of freebies on that site, but you also need to pay the one year subscription fee.  We did it for a year and got a lot of neat stuff!

I had the kids sitting on the carpet in front of the pocket chart and read aloud the Weather Dictionary that I created a few years ago.  Some of the weather words I included in the book:  snow, rain, tornado, hurricane, thunder, lightning.  Then we went back to our tables and read the dictionary as a class doing a choral read.  The dictionary had the vocabulary word missing from the text, so they had to fill in the missing words on each page as we read.  Whenever we read together and fill in the missing words, I find myself saying:  "Fingers are for reading!  Pencils are for writing!" 

You can download a FREE copy of the weather dictionary HERE through Google Docs.  A lot of the clip art is DJ Inkers:  www.djinkers.com.  Here's the cover page and the "wind" page:

We had about 7 minutes left of theme time, so that's when we did the Weather Riddles that I created yesterday.  The kids LOVED the riddles activity.  They were such good listeners...and they all knew when it was their turn to come up and read the answer to the riddle.  (See my previous post about Weather Riddles cards.)

Weather Riddles Cards

As I looked at our lesson plans for this one week mini-unit on Weather, I realized that we were a bit "fluffy".  You know...lots of cutsie stuff, but not a lot of meat and potatoes!  I'm excited for some of the new weather related creative writing activities we are doing, but just didn't feel like we were teaching some vocabulary.  So after school today I whipped up some Weather Riddles cards that we could use as a large group activity.  We have a Weather word wall pocket chart that has TONS of weather words on there...now I have something more that teaches those words.  Hopefully this activity will help bring some meaning to the unit this week.

Here's a thumbnail of the Weather Riddles cards I just uploaded for sale on TPT:

The cute blue dots border is from Graphics From the Pond.  It was a FREEBIE I found at her TPT store.  Other clip art used was from public domain sources and the cute raindrops image was from KPM Doodles.

Weather Pocket Chart Poem Freebie

This week we started our mini-unit on Weather.  A great book to read aloud to younger children about weather is:  "What Will the Weather Be?" by Lynda DeWitt.  It has great illustrations to go along with the text.

One of the pocket chart poems we do for shared reading is one we call "Weather".  I can't even remember where we got this poem, but we digitized it and added clip art.  If you or anyone knows where this poem came from please leave a comment so we can give the author credit.  Here is the first two strips of the pocket chart poem:

The words of the poem go like this:

Weather is hot.
Weather is cold.
Weather is changing as the weeks unfold.
Skies are cloudy.
Skies are fair.
Skies are changing in the air.
It is raining.
It is snowing.
It is windy with breezes blowing.
Days are foggy.
Days are clear.
Weather is changing throughout the year.

If you would like this pocket chart poem, you can download it HERE from Google Docs.
Clip Art images by DJ Inkers: www.djinkers.com and other sources.

Clouds Mini-Book

Great for a unit on Clouds or Weather. Goes great with an activity where you can make clouds with cotton balls: "I looked up in the sky and thought I saw a ____, but it was just a cloud."  Here is a mini-book that students could read first to think of and draw up an idea of what they will create with the "cloud" cotton balls.

Words included in this book:
The words of the book go like this:
I see clouds up in the sky.
Some clouds bring rain.
Some clouds bring storms.
Some clouds make tornados.
But some clouds make pictures of things I see up in the sky.
Like yummy popcorn, I'd like to try!
What do you see?

Here is a thumbnail of the mini-book I put together tonight.
(It doesn't show the cover page or the last page where students get to draw their own picture)

Updated file:  May 2015 new clip art used and a different border.  (Clouds Doodles by Clip Art by Carrie and FREE Popcorn Clip Art Bundle by Educlips)

Old version:

You can purchase this book at our TPT HERE.

I'd appreciate your feedback!  



Clip Art and Border: old version
The cute little squiggly border came from Graphics From the Pond.  Check out her blog HERE.
The rest of the clip art from the book came from public domain clip art sources:
www.openclipart.org, www.wpclipart.com, and www.clker.com.

Cloudy With A Chance Of...?

So next week we continue our study of the world around us by talking about Weather.  Since its such a short week, we will mainly talk about the different types of weather they have around where we live.  Then go into different types of weather around the world and connect that to the continents and oceans study we did the past two weeks.  In the past we've gotten in depth on hurricanes, tornaoes, thunderstorms...and it seemed to scare the first graders a little bit, so we are going to tone it down a little bit.  We will do a few pocket chart poems about clouds, weather, and some literature response activities.

One of the activities we will be doing is a retelling/creative writing activity after reading/listening to the book "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs".  Students will get to create their own version of the book by adding the missing facts from the retell and also add their own twist to the book by deciding what kind of food falls from the sky and what will happen in the town of Chew-and-Swallow.  There are 11 pages total to the booklet that students will write and illustrate.

Here is a thumbnail of the activity that I put together today:

You can purchase this booklet at our TPT HERE.  The cute graphics border is a freebie from Graphics From the Pond.  Be sure to check out her blog HERE.