"Wild Weather"/Storms

• unit activity -- To demonstrate the relationship between thunder and lightning, recreate the scene in the classroom. Explain that thunder is the sound given off by lightning. Have one student stand by the classroom light switches and turn them on and off to represent a bolt of lightning. At the same time, trap a giant breath of air inside a paper lunch bag, hold the top, and hit the bottom of the air-filled bag to sound a BOOM! Repeat the demonstration several times. Have the remaining students count the seconds between the "lightning bolt" and the boom of "thunder" with tallies on a piece of paper (one thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three...). Group the number of seconds into groups of five. This number is how many miles away the lightning struck. Explain how thunder and lightning occur at the same time, but light travels much faster than sound. As a class determine how far away the lightning struck.
• writer's workshop -- Read to the students Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Model writing for the students of what food they would love to fall from the sky. Talk about the problems that would occur in the town if certain foods fell. Have students write about how their community would work together if such weather occurred. Include weather forecasting words and style. Add illustrations of the weather in food terms or a map of the weather forecast with food symbols.