What is This Wonderful Weather Around us?

The weather surrounds us every day, shaping our decisions, affecting our mood, and creating a constant backdrop to our lives. For teachers and parents, weather offers a wonderful opportunity to engage children with science, observation skills, and the natural world in a way that’s both practical and fascinating.

As Michelle Connolly, Founder of LearningMole, explains: “Weather is one of the most accessible scientific concepts for young learners. It’s something they experience directly every day, making it a perfect starting point for developing observation skills and understanding cause and effect in our natural world. Learning about the weather around us becomes intuitive.”

This comprehensive guide will explore what makes the weather around us so wonderful, how to understand different types of weather, share interesting facts about weather, and provide practical teaching strategies for making weather studies engaging for learners of all ages.

What Makes Weather So Wonderful?

The weather around us is truly amazing for several key reasons:

1. It’s ever-changing – From one hour to the next, weather creates a dynamic environment that teaches children about change and adaptation. This constant flux provides endless learning moments about the weather for kids.
2. It’s directly observable – Unlike many scientific concepts, the weather around us can be seen, felt, heard and experienced personally. Kids can gather firsthand facts about the weather.
3. It connects us to our environment – Teaching weather helps children understand how they are part of a larger natural system, directly impacted by the weather around us.
4. It crosses curriculum boundaries – Studies of the weather around us integrate science, geography, mathematics, art, and literacy. Understanding different types of weather supports multiple learning areas.
5. It teaches cause and effect – Children can observe how one weather condition leads to another, building critical thinking skills.

The wonderful nature of weather is that it provides constant real-world examples of scientific principles in action, making abstract concepts concrete for young learners.

Types of Weather

Weather takes many forms, each with distinct characteristics that create different sensory experiences for children to observe and understand. Exploring these different types of weather is fundamental to understanding the broader weather around us.

Sunny Weather

When the weather is sunny, the sky is clear and filled with sunshine. The sun’s energy directly affects air pressure and temperature. Sunny weather provides us with:

• Light and warmth that enables outdoor activities
• Energy for plants to grow through photosynthesis
• Opportunities for animals and humans to produce vitamin D

Importantly, sunny days aren’t always hot – they can also be cool depending on the season, teaching children important facts about weather concerning how sunlight and temperature relate, but aren’t always directly correlated. This is a vital distinction when teaching weather for kids.

Cloudy Weather

Clouds are visible masses of water droplets suspended in the atmosphere. They form when water vapour rises, cools, and condenses around tiny particles in the air. Understanding clouds is key to understanding many types of weather. Clouds create a barrier between the Earth and the sun, affecting temperature in complex ways:

• They can block sunlight, creating cooler conditions
• They can also trap heat near the surface, creating warmer conditions
• Different cloud types (cirrus, cumulus, stratus) indicate different weather conditions

Teaching children to identify cloud types helps them develop prediction skills regarding the weather around us and understand atmospheric processes. These are great facts about the weather for budding meteorologists.

Windy Weather

Wind is simply air in motion, occurring when air moves from areas of high pressure to areas of low pressure. Wind strength varies from gentle breezes to powerful storms, and direction provides clues about incoming weather systems.

Wind has many observable effects that children can study:

• Movement of leaves, grass, and trees
• The feel of air against skin
• Sound created as air moves through objects
• The ability to move objects (kites, windmills, sailboats)

Wind provides excellent opportunities for sensory learning and for introducing concepts of force and energy to young learners.

Rainy Weather

Rain occurs when water droplets in clouds become too heavy and fall to the ground. Rain creates a multi-sensory experience:

• The sound of raindrops
• The smell of rain on dry ground (petrichor)
• The visual patterns of water droplets and puddles
• The tactile experience of feeling raindrops

Rain is essential for life on Earth, filling rivers, lakes, and underground water sources. It also creates an opportunity to teach children about the water cycle – one of the fundamental processes shaping the weather around us.

Snowy Weather

Snow forms when water vapour freezes directly into ice crystals in clouds and then falls to the ground. Snow creates a transformed landscape that can be magical for children to experience:

• The quiet sound absorption of a snow-covered landscape
• The visual beauty of snowflakes and snow formations
• The tactile experience of making snowballs and feeling snowflakes melt

Snow provides opportunities to teach about states of matter, temperature, and thermal insulation, all relevant to understanding the weather around us and key concepts in weather for kids.

The Four Seasons

The weather changes dramatically through the four seasons, creating different learning opportunities throughout the year.

Spring

Spring brings warming temperatures after winter’s cold. It’s characterised by:

• Plants budding and blooming
• Animals becoming more active
• More variable weather patterns
• Longer daylight hours

Spring is ideal for teaching about plant life cycles, animal behaviours, and the concept of rebirth in nature.

Summer

Summer brings the year’s warmest temperatures. This season features:

• Long daylight hours and shorter nights
• Higher UV levels from the sun
• Potential for heatwaves in some regions
• Summer thunderstorms

Summer weather allows for extended outdoor learning opportunities and exploration of concepts like evaporation and heat energy.

Autumn

Autumn (or Fall) serves as a transition between summer’s heat and winter’s cold. It’s marked by:

• Falling leaves and changing foliage colours
• Gradually shortening days
• Cooling temperatures
• Often windier conditions

Autumn is perfect for teaching about hibernation, migration, and how plants and animals prepare for winter, adapting to the shifting weather around us.

Winter

Winter brings the coldest temperatures of the year, featuring:

• Shortest daylight hours
• Frost, ice, and potentially snow
• Dormant plants
• Animal adaptations to cold

Winter provides opportunities to teach about states of matter, insulation, and how both humans and wildlife adapt to challenging conditions.

Weather vs Climate: Understanding the Difference

One important concept to clarify for learners is the distinction between weather and climate:

Weather refers to short-term atmospheric conditions that can change hour by hour or day by day. It’s what’s happening outside right now or in the near future.

Climate describes the average weather patterns in a region over a long period (typically 30+ years). It tells us what types of weather we can generally expect in different seasons in a particular area.

This distinction helps children understand why we can have a cold day during global warming or why a rainy week doesn’t change the fact that we might live in a dry climate.

Climate Change

While we observe and learn about the day-to-day wonders of the weather around us, it’s also important to understand the longer-term changes happening to our planet’s climate system. Building on the distinction between weather and climate, climate change refers to significant, long-lasting shifts in these average weather patterns over decades or centuries. Understanding this bigger picture adds another layer of importance to studying the weather for kids.

Remember our definition: climate is the average weather over many years. Climate change means this average is shifting, primarily due to human activities releasing heat-trapping gases (like carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels) into the atmosphere. Imagine the Earth wrapped in a natural blanket of these gases, keeping it warm enough for life. Climate change is like making that blanket thicker, trapping more heat and gradually warming the planet. This warming trend presents new facts about the weather patterns globally.

What does this mean for the weather around us that children observe? While a single hot day or a big snowstorm is still weather, climate change influences the likelihood and intensity of certain types of weather:

1. Rising Average Temperatures: Globally, average temperatures are increasing. This doesn’t mean every day is hotter, but the overall trend is towards warmer conditions, affecting seasonal patterns we discussed.
2. Changes in Precipitation: Some areas might experience more intense rainfall and flooding, while others face more frequent or severe droughts. The familiar patterns of rainy or dry seasons can shift.
3. More Extreme Weather Events: Scientific evidence suggests climate change can contribute to making certain extreme weather events, like heatwaves, heavy downpours, and potentially some storms, more frequent or intense. These shifts impact the familiar weather around us.
4. Impacts on Ecosystems: Changes in temperature and precipitation patterns affect plants and animals, influencing the timing of migrations, blooming, or hibernation, connecting back to the seasonal observations children make.

Teaching Climate Change Sensitively

Introducing climate change, especially to younger children, requires a careful, age-appropriate approach. The focus should be on:

• Observation and Data: Reinforce the difference between daily weather observations and long-term climate trends. Look at simple graphs showing temperature changes over decades.
• Cause and Effect: Explain the basic concept of the “blanket effect” and how human actions contribute.
• Focus on Solutions and Hope: Emphasise positive actions like saving energy, reducing waste, planting trees, and caring for nature. Empower children by showing how small actions contribute to a healthier planet.
• Connecting to Nature: Strengthen their appreciation for the natural world and the importance of protecting the systems that create the weather around us.

Understanding climate change isn’t about causing anxiety; it’s about fostering awareness and responsibility. It helps children see that the fascinating weather around us is part of a larger, interconnected system that needs our care and attention. Learning these broader facts about weather and climate empowers the next generation to become thoughtful stewards of our planet.

Extreme Weather Phenomena

While day-to-day weather observations form the foundation of weather studies, understanding extreme weather events can capture children’s imagination and teach valuable safety lessons.

Thunderstorms

Thunderstorms combine lightning (electrical discharges in the atmosphere) and thunder (the sound produced by rapidly heated air around a lightning bolt). They teach important concepts about:

• Electricity in nature
• Sound travel and light speed
• Weather safety practices

Tsunamis

While not strictly weather events (as they’re caused by underwater earthquakes or volcanic activity), tsunamis are often included in broader studies of natural phenomena. These enormous waves can reach heights over 30 meters and occur most frequently in the Pacific Ocean.

Key learning points include:

• How tsunamis differ from regular waves (they’re not caused by wind)
• How underwater geography affects tsunami formation
• Warning systems and safety procedures

Earthquakes

Similarly, earthquakes are geological rather than meteorological events but are often studied alongside weather phenomena. They occur when energy stored in Earth’s crust is suddenly released as seismic waves.

Children can learn about:

• How earthquakes are measured (using seismographs)
• The Richter scale and what different magnitudes mean
• How building design can reduce earthquake damage

Teaching Weather Concepts

Weather offers countless opportunities for engaging, hands-on learning across the curriculum. Here are practical approaches for integrating weather studies into your teaching:

Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)

For the youngest learners (ages 3-5), focus on sensory experiences and simple observations:

• Weather wheels for daily observations
• Sensory bottles representing different weather types
• Weather songs and movement activities
• Simple weather-themed stories and rhymes

“Young children naturally notice weather changes,” notes Michelle Connolly. “By giving them the vocabulary to describe these observations, we’re building the foundation for scientific thinking.”

Key Stage 1 (Years 1-2)

For children ages 5-7, build on sensory experiences with more structured observations:

• Daily weather journals with simple symbols
• Measuring rainfall with homemade rain gauges
• Observing and drawing different cloud types
• Creating weather-themed artwork
• Reading thermometers and discussing temperature changes

Key Stage 2 (Years 3-6)

For children ages 7-11, introduce more complex concepts and measurements:

• Building and using weather instruments (anemometers, barometers)
• Collecting and graphing weather data over time
• Studying the water cycle in more detail
• Researching extreme weather events
• Comparing weather in different parts of the world

Cross-Curricular Connections

Weather easily integrates into multiple subject areas:

Mathematics:

• Data collection and graphing of temperature, rainfall, wind speed
• Measuring and comparing precipitation amounts
• Calculating averages and identifying patterns

Literacy:

• Weather vocabulary development
• Descriptive writing inspired by different weather conditions
• Research projects on weather phenomena
• Weather-themed creative writing

Geography:

• Comparing weather in different regions
• Understanding how geography affects local weather
• Mapping weather patterns

Art and Design:

• Creating weather-inspired artwork
• Designing and making weather instruments
• Cloud photography and sketching

Computing:

• Using digital thermometers and data loggers
• Creating digital weather journals
• Accessing and interpreting online weather data

Weather Activities for the Classroom

Here are practical, tested activities that bring weather studies to life:

1. Create a Class Weather Station

Set up a dedicated area with:

• Rain gauge (can be homemade from a plastic bottle)
• Thermometer
• Wind sock or pinwheel
• Cloud observation chart
• Weather journal for recording daily observations

This creates ongoing engagement with weather concepts through practical application.

2. Weather Forecasting Challenge

Have students:

• Observe current conditions
• Look at cloud types and wind direction
• Make predictions about upcoming weather
• Compare their predictions to actual outcomes
• Discuss why forecasts were accurate or inaccurate

This develops observational skills, prediction, and critical thinking.

3. Water Cycle in a Bag

Create visible water cycles by:

• Filling a resealable plastic bag with a small amount of water
• Adding blue food colouring
• Drawing a simple landscape on the bag
• Taping to a window in direct sunlight
• Observing evaporation, condensation, and precipitation

This demonstrates abstract concepts in a visible, concrete way.

4. Weather Vocabulary Development

Expand weather-related language through:

• Weather word walls with illustrations
• “How would you describe…” activities with weather photos
• Weather poetry using descriptive language
• Comparing weather reports from different sources

This builds scientific vocabulary while supporting literacy development.

5. Digital Weather Tracking

Incorporate technology by:

• Using child-friendly weather apps
• Comparing digital forecasts with personal observations
• Creating digital weather journals with photos and notes
• Exploring satellite imagery of weather systems

This connects traditional observation with modern meteorological tools.

Supporting Resources from LearningMole

At LearningMole, we offer comprehensive resources to support teaching about weather:

• Educational Videos – Our weather series breaks down complex concepts into engaging, age-appropriate content for different key stages
• Downloadable Resources – Printable weather journals, observation sheets, and activity guides
• Curriculum-Aligned Materials – Resources mapped to UK curriculum requirements for science and geography
• Cross-Curricular Activities – Weather-themed resources that integrate with literacy, mathematics, and creative subjects

“Our weather resources are designed to build scientific understanding while encouraging children’s natural curiosity about the world around them,” explains Michelle Connolly. “We focus on practical activities that teachers can implement easily, regardless of their science background.”

Weather offers endless wonder and learning opportunities right outside our windows. By exploring its patterns with children, we nurture observation skills, scientific thinking, and a deeper connection to nature’s rhythms. From thunderstorms to snowflakes, each phenomenon sparks curiosity about our planet’s interconnected systems. These experiences can inspire lifelong scientific interest while teaching children they’re part of a greater global ecosystem.

For more comprehensive weather resources and activities, explore LearningMole’s subscription services, which provide access to our complete library of educational videos and teaching materials.