Cloudy With a Chance of...

This interactive, cross-curricular bulletin board supports second grade standards for science and literature.

Indiana Standard:
2.2.3 Chart or graph weather observations such as cloud cover, cloud type and type of precipitation on a daily basis over a period of weeks.

Common Core Literacy Standard:
ELA-Literacy.RL.2.3 Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges.

Objective:
Students will demonstrate their understanding of the book Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs by using the activities provided from this interactive bulletin board.  In addition, students will be able to use a graph to chart their daily observations of weather. 

Books:

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Burrett

Weather by Seymour Simon

Eyewitness Weather by Dorling Kindersly

Activities:
     “Make it Rain” 

• fill a cup with water
• make a “cloud” by spraying shaving cream on top of the water
• drop food coloring on top of the shaving cream, or your “cloud”
• the color will “rain” through the cloud

     Weather Observation

• students will observe the weather each day
• describe the weather (clouds? precipitation?) on the chart
• make daily observations for a week

Materials:

• shaving cream
• food coloring
• clear cups
• water
• daily weather graph

Helpful Websites (used on bulletin board as QR codes):

• The Weather Channel
• Interactive Weather Maker

Bulletin Board Construction Materials:

• blue roll paper for background
• white roll paper for clouds, letters
• red construction paper to back standards, objectives, directions, and QR codes
• yellow yarn for spaghetti
• small styrofoam balls and brown paint for meatballs
• wire hangers for book holders
• fishing line to hang various elements
• umbrella- we cut the material so that the umbrella would line up flat against the board and tied the metal pieces together to keep it open 
• hot glue, paper clips, sticky tack, tape, and staples to mount elements