I remain half-convinced that there is a spy working between our Kiwi Co. and Little Passport’s subscriptions because once more they are sync. Having recently received Koala’s crate all about the wind, we found the more broadly themed Early Explorer’s Weather package waiting in our mailbox. No complaints here; there wasn’t too much overlap, and we love anything that continues our learning of a topic.

As usual, we received a booklet of activities to fill out, stickers for our map and suitcase, flashcards, and a “flashlight adventure.” Matching up peas and pennies to see various hail stone sizes was particularly fun!

Weather Craft:

It’s easy to forget that “sun” counts as weather, since it can seem like the default, but these gorgeous suncatchers are a great way to appreciate the sunlight. Place a piece of contact paper, sticky side up, on a large work surface. Give your child pieces of colorful cellophane to put all over the paper.

Note: I recommend purchasing small sheets of craft cellophane, which you can then easily cut into squares. Large rolls of cellophane (sold for wrapping gifts) would be a huge pain in this case.

Travis started out placing each piece deliberately.

But then dumped on the whole plateful!

Cover with a second sheet of sticky paper to seal in your child’s design, then cut to desired size and hang in a sunny window.

Weather Science:

The booklet included a great experiment to showcase the water cycle and evaporation on a small scale that kids can grasp. Plus any experiment with food coloring is always fun.

Add two drops of blue food color to 1/4 cup water, then pour into a zip-top plastic bag. Color a sun and cloud (Travis drew a huge sun, which I then cut down to size), cut out, and attach to the bag.

Now hang the bag in a door or window of your house that gets direct sunlight. Soon we could see evaporation at work!

Weather Keepsake:

The weather wall calendar was the closet overlap with our Koala Wind Crate, but we loved the ease of attaching the felt pieces on this one.

There’s also a handy pocket for storing all the pieces that are not in use. Simple, but fun for kids each morning.

Weather Field Trip:

For this one I had to get creative. Where could we best observe the weather? I decided a lighthouse would be great fun, both for the novelty of it, and because lighthouses were meant to protect ships in all sorts of stormy weather. We headed off on a slightly unsettled day to visit one about an hour away.

Travis loved the climb.

And the beacon up top!

Make sure you do your research before you go, as many lighthouses have age and height requirements for those hoping to ascend to the top.

And sometimes, weather field trips are unplanned. We just happened to be at the beach when this ominous thunderstorm rolled in. Travis loved watching from a nearby cafe window!

Weather Further Activities:

As always, there were suggestions for lots more activities, and we had fun ticking them off (weather permitting!) over the course of a couple weeks.

Take advantage of a windy day (and a trusty plastic bag kite) and watch the wind make your kite soar.

Then cook up some cloudy day fun in the kitchen. Tint your favorite vegan jel dessert with a few drops of blue food coloring and prepare according to package directions.

 

Once it sets, top with SoyaToo whipped cream, and eat the clouds out of the sky!

We then repeated an old activity, collecting rain in a jar for a homemade rain meter. We had an absolute downpour, and I was sure we’d have at least an inch, but later discovered the wind had knocked our jar over. We learned that the storm had dumped nearly 5 inches of rain in some parts of the state, and about 1.5 inches in our area.

Finally, we took the exploration online. Travis loved learning how I check the weather on an app each morning.

Then we looked at the Virtual Weather Museum (or go to one, if you have a good museum near you!) where he loved the available satellite images on everything from cloud formations to ocean currents.