Whatever the Weather

This week, the children in the foundation stage have been looking at weather and in particular, windy weather.

In both Carle and McKee windmills were made made and kites "flown" .

Unfortunately, for us, it has not been a particularly windy week outside, however the children ran about to get their kites airborne. This proved to be no hardship and was enjoyed by those who took part. The kites looked very colourful and lots of fun was had.

Inside we talked about how to make air move and how to use this power. We attempted to do this by making paper fish and paper fans and flapping the fish from one end of the "lake" the the other. The children discovered that they needed to be quite careful where they directed the wind, just waving the fan made the air move, but not necessarily the fish. Without exception it brought big smiles when they worked out just how to make the fish move.

F - "The air needs to be under the fish."

H - "Flap hard to make it move more."

E - "I am getting all cold now!"

Both classes have also tried their hand at weather forecasting. Each have a weather station set up where they can fill in maps and charts and make their observations and predictions. They have also watched a clip of a BBC presenter  to see how this is done on television each day and we are making some of our own.

We made the most of an overnight frost, by taking a break from the wind, and going outside to find out about frost. The children noticed that the air was much colder than on previous days, A - "I can breath like dragons do."  J - "I need my hat and scarf." O - "The cold is crunchy."

We all tried making marks and patterns in the frost:

H - "My hands are hot and so they melt the frost."

R - "You need to take your gloves off because they keep the warm inside you."

E- "Feet don't work well because they have shoes."

Mrs Aldiss showed the children how to rub their hands together to warm them up again by making heat from the friction.