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  • Kindergarten

    Weather and Climate

Students who demonstrate understanding can:

Performance Expectations

  1. Use and share observations of local weather conditions to describe patterns over time. K-ESS2-1

    Clarification Statement and Assessment Boundary

  2. Ask questions to obtain information about the purpose of weather forecasting to prepare for, and respond to, severe weather. K-ESS3-2

    Clarification Statement and Assessment Boundary

  3. Make observations to determine the effect of sunlight on Earth’s surface. K-PS3-1

    Clarification Statement and Assessment Boundary

  4. Use tools and materials provided to design and build a structure that will reduce the warming effect of sunlight on an area. K-PS3-2

    Clarification Statement and Assessment Boundary

A Peformance Expectation (PE) is what a student should be able to do to show mastery of a concept. Some PEs include a Clarification Statement and/or an Assessment Boundary. These can be found by clicking the PE for "More Info." By hovering over a PE, its corresponding pieces from the Science and Engineering Practices, Disciplinary Core Ideas, and Crosscutting Concepts will be highlighted.

Science and Engineering Practices

Asking Questions and Defining Problems

Asking questions and defining problems in K–2 builds on prior experiences and progresses to simple descriptive questions.

Planning and Carrying Out Investigations

Planning and carrying out investigations to answer questions or test solutions to problems in K–2 builds on prior experiences and progresses to simple investigations, based on fair tests, which provide data to support explanations or design solutions.

Analyzing and Interpreting Data

Analyzing data in K–2 builds on prior experiences and progresses to collecting, recording, and sharing observations.

Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions

Constructing explanations and designing solutions in K–2 builds on prior experiences and progresses to the use of evidence and ideas in constructing evidence-based accounts of natural phenomenon and designing solutions.

Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information

Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information in K–2 builds on prior experiences and uses observations and texts to communicate new information.

Disciplinary Core Ideas

Crosscutting Concepts

By clicking on a specific Science and Engineering Practice, Disciplinary Core Idea, or Crosscutting Concept, you can find out more information on it. By hovering over one you can find its corresponding elements in the PEs.

Planning Curriculum

Common Core State Standards Connections

ELA/Literacy

  • RL.K.1 - With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text. (K-ESS3-2)
  • SL.K.3 - Ask and answer questions in order to seek help, get information, or clarify something that is not understood. (K-ESS3-2)
  • W.K.7 - Participate in shared research and writing projects (e.g., explore a number of books by a favorite author and express opinions about them). (K-ESS2-1), (K-PS3-1), (K-PS3-2)

Mathematics

  • K.CC - Counting and Cardinality (K-ESS3-2)
  • K.CC.A - Know number names and the count sequence. (K-ESS2-1)
  • K.MD.A.1 - Describe measurable attributes of objects, such as length or weight. Describe several measurable attributes of a single object. (K-ESS2-1)
  • K.MD.A.2 - Directly compare two objects with a measurable attribute in common, to see which object has "more of"/"less of" the attribute, and describe the difference. (K-PS3-1), (K-PS3-2)
  • K.MD.B.3 - Classify objects into given categories; count the numbers of objects in each category and sort the categories by count. (K-ESS2-1)
  • MP.2 - Reason abstractly and quantitatively. (K-ESS2-1)
  • MP.4 - Model with mathematics. (K-ESS2-1), (K-ESS3-2)

Model Course Mapping

First Time Visitors

Resources & Lesson Plans

  • More resources added each week!
    A team of teacher curators is working to find, review, and vet online resources that support the standards. Check back often, as NSTA continues to add more targeted resources.
  • I Can See and Feel the Changes in the Seasons

    Students use their senses to investigate changes in the seasons by making observations in nature. They collect data by drawing, writing, and or labeling their observations to compare how sunlight affects themselves and objects as the seasons change. ...

  • Warmth of the Sun

    In this lesson, students will take a closer look at the sun and begin to recognize its function in heating and warming the air, land, and water that sustains our lives. This will involve drawing their attention to the basics of the heat around them a ...

  • A Place in the Shade- An Engineering Challenge

    In this lesson students collaborate while planning, constructing, and testing a structure that reduces the warming effect of sunlight on an ice cube.  This is the seventh lesson of a nine lesson betterlesson.com unit by Joyce Baumann.

  • Weather Adds Up to Climate

    This unit consists of five parts that occur over the course of a school year. In Part 1 students are introduced to different ways to describe weather. In Part 2, students record weather observations each day on bar graphs. In Part 3, at the end of ea ...

  • Sunlight Warms Earth's Surface

    In this unit of study, in a series of six lessons, students will use their observations to develop an understanding that sunlight warms Earth's surface and use their knowledge to design and build a prototype of a structure that will reduce the wa ...

  • Severe Weather-Blizzards-Let it Snow!

    This is #5 in a unit about severe weather. Using the book, Whiteout by Rick Thomas, images taken from space, and observing crystals students will learn about blizzards.

  • Activity 5: Weather: The Many Faces of Mother Nature

    This resource is part of a collection of ten activities in the Discover Earth series, designed to teach the story of Earth and its changing environment for ages 5-13. It includes differentiated task instructions for each  ...

  • About the Weather

    This lesson is about using local weather to make observations, measure, collect, and record data to describe patterns over time. Students will count types of outdoor clothing worn by classmates and use the data to look for patterns in weather over mo ...

  • Science- Weather

    This is a free interactive learning activity designed for individual students and can easily be used as a whole class interactive whiteboard activity.This particular title explores weather in relationship to season and temperature. Students learn to ...

  • Weather Walks

    Students learn about weather by taking walks during various weather conditions over the course of time. Walks take place during during sunny, rainy, windy, or snowy conditions. The lesson is divided into four sections with activities assigned to each ...

  • Weather and Climate Basics

    This is a resource from the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the National Science Foundation that explains the basics of weather and climate. This article is designed as background information for the teacher.

  • Cloud in a Jar Observation Booklet

    This free TeachersPayTeachers resource is a booklet that includes a KWL, observation pages, and writing activities about clouds to enrich "the cloud in a jar" activity. It does not include directions for making a cloud in a jar.

  • Disappearing Water

    This lesson is part of a series of weather related lessons from AAAS Science NetLinks. In this lesson, students watch what happens to water over time. Equal amounts of water will be placed in cans. One can will be closed and the other will be open ...

  • Cooler in the Shadows

    This lesson includes several activities where students observe, explore, and analyze shadows. Students will make inferences about the cause of shadows, The lesson is linked to NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft in its voyage to and around Mercury. This ...

  • Weather Patterns

    This lesson is the first in a two-part series on the weather. The study of the weather in these early years is important because it can help students understand that some events in nature have a repeating pattern. It also is important for students to ...

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Planning Curriculum gives connections to other areas of study for easier curriculum creation.