This is my first year homeschooling...we've been having a great time (mostly!). I am trying to find a book/study for my 4th grade son that will teach him more about weather. He is very interested in that topic, and while he covered the basic overview last year in ps, I know he would like to learn more in depth about weather. I have looked on Amazon and there are a few books there that might work, but I wanted to see if anyone here knew of a good resource on weather. We can always hit the library up for books (although he has probably read most of the weather ones already), but I wondered if any veteran hs parents might have an idea of where else to look... Thanks!
I'd look at the library if I were you. My library has a juvenile non-fiction section FULL of science books that rival what I learned in college (I minored in science). There are lots of books about weather... from pictures to experiments to long, boring texts.
We did weather and checked out lots of books from the library. Look for different titles such as hurricanes, tornados, etc. We also measured rain with a rain gauge from Menards. This site is helpful and might give you some ideas on what you want to cover with him. I pull things from here every once in a while. http://www.weather.gov/ Hope this helps.
We did weather last year. The gal teaching it (to three boys) arranged for us to visit the weatherman at the TV station. It was an awesome field trip!!! We were in the studio live for their evening newscast, then afterwards, the weather guy gave us tour and answered questions. Oh, and the boys were actually "on" for a brief moment!
Many years ago I wrote The Weather Channel and told them that we were a home educating family and that we were studying weather. They sent me an awesome book that we still use plus some other info. You might try something like that.
Moving Beyond the Page has a GREAT Weather unit. There is the Unit Study for 15.00 and a Weather Kit for 17.30. (It includes thermometer; materials for anemometer, hygrometer, weather front experiments; and a human powered light bulb.) You would also have to find the book Weather by Brian Cosgrove It is for the 10-11 year range. There is also a literature unit that goes with weather unit called "The Wanderer". The unit is 15.00 and the book is 8.00 at MBTP. But Rainbow Resources has most of MBTP units. And I think Rainbow's prices were a little better. And you can buy only the parts you want from Moving Beyond the Page, you don't have to buy the whole year or unit. If you can get the books from the library or find them cheaper somewhere else then you could just buy the Unit Study books.
We have also checked out every. single. weather book our local libraries carry. lol My son is a weather nut. The only one I found worth buying and having on hand is the National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Weather. It is basically your bird book of weather. They can look at the clouds, and then search the pictures to find out what kind they are and learn more about them. It isn't the kind you read through like a story, but it has a lot of information and can be used for years. Try a weather lapbook too. We did that last year, and you can find tons of stuff to print off online. Save up National Geographics and other magazines as a scavenger hunt of sorts. You can challenge him to find specific examples of clouds and types of weather: cumulus clouds, tornado, hail, etc....
