Weather and what we wear
Geography · Early Years · The School
Kinds of weather
SUNNY, RAINY, CLOUDY, WINDY, SNOWY, FOGGY. Look out each morning and choose one. Some days need two words — sunny AND windy — and noticing that is more accurate than picking just one.
Dressing for it
A coat for rain, a hat for sun, gloves for snow, wellies for puddles. Ask why: a coat keeps water OFF you, gloves keep warmth IN. Clothes are a solution to a weather problem, which is a geography idea long before it is a fashion one.
Keeping a record
Draw a symbol for the weather every day for a week and line them up. That row of symbols is DATA, and you collected it. Count how many were rainy. Was this week wetter than last? Now you are comparing, which is what weather scientists do.
Keep a chart for a week with two separate columns: SUNSHINE (sunny, cloudy, in between) and TEMPERATURE (cold, mild, warm). By Friday you will almost certainly have a day that was sunny AND cold, and possibly one that was cloudy and mild. The two columns do not match up — which is exactly why weather forecasts give you both and not just a picture of a sun.
Getting it wrong, and what that teaches
Everyone has been caught out: a coat on a day that turned hot, sandals on a day that turned wet. That is not carelessness — the weather changed, which is what weather does. It is why forecasts exist and why people check them, and why layers are useful: a jumper you can take off handles a morning that is cold and an afternoon that is not. Look out of the window in the morning, then look again at lunchtime, and notice whether it stayed the same.