Student slideshow: English | Spanish

Teacher printout: English & Spanish

These Common-Core-aligned readings are free with registration on ReadWorks. All readings include comprehension questions.

• Whys of Weather: Rain — What makes rain fall? (Grade 3)
• Summer vacation — A story about predicting the weather. (Grade 3)
• The Big Storm — Three friends are caught in a storm while canoeing in a lake. (Grade 4)

Lesson extension: More sights in the sky

Activity: Weather Watcher’s Journal

Activity: Make a Wind Vane and learn to estimate wind speed.

How Far Away Is That Thunderstorm?

It’s easy to figure out how far away a thunderstorm is.

When you see a flash of lightning, start counting off the seconds like this: one-one thousand, two-one thousand, three-one thousand. Stop counting as soon as you hear the thunder.

Every five seconds you count equals about one mile. So if you counted 5 seconds, the storm is about a mile away. If you see lightning but never hear the thunder, the storm is more than 12 miles away — too far for you to hear the thunder.

Cloud poetry

Poets and scientists both carefully observe and describe the world around them. Develop these skills with your students by having them write poetry about clouds.

• Read Clouds, a poem that compares clouds to sheep.

• Show your students pictures of clouds from the Cloudman’s Gallery. Ask students to describe these clouds. Fill the board with cloud words and cloud comparisons.

• Write a poem that answers a question, like “how does the cloud make you feel?” or “what does the cloud do?” or "what does this cloud make me think about?"