Students will:

1. Learn winter weather vocabulary

Directions

1. Ask children to talk about what winter weather is like. How does it feel when they go outside? What does the sky look like? Make a list on the chalkboard of children's responses.
2. Invite children to glance out the classroom window, then brainstorm a flurry of weather words together. Write children's responses on the chalkboard. If children run out of responses prompt them with some of the words in the list.
3. Ask children which words have to do with winter.
4. Have children circle those words on the chalkboard.
5. Ask them to explain their reason for choosing the winter word.
6. Have children share their experiences with winter weather. Ask them to:
7. Tell about favorite things you do in winter weather.
8. Tell about a time you were in a winter storm.

Lesson Extensions

Read Blizzards! by Lorraine Jean Hopping, Cartwheel Books/Scholastic, 1998, New York, New York.

Assignments

Tell children to imagine that they have to describe a kind of weather to someone who has never experienced it before, a snowstorm to someone who lives someplace very warm. If you wish, have children brainstorm a list of phrase-starters such as the following: It looks like . . . It sounds like . . . It makes you think of . . . It makes you feel . . . Then encourage them to "paint a picture" with words, so that someone reading their description could picture the kind of weather they are describing.