“There is peace in every storm.”
-Vincent VanGogh
Learning about weather in your homeschool? We hope you’ll find some ideas from our Weather and storms homeschool unit study! This page should serve as a guide for you, if you are teaching your 2nd-6th grade students about hurricanes, tornadoes, and thunderstorms. If your child has a fear of weather or storms, please tread lightly with this topic and preview all books and videos.
I designed this unit for my homeschool children, however many of the books and videos could be adapted to a school environment as well. At the bottom of the page, you can find a find a list of supplies for the tornado in a jar.
Books
First, head to your local library or to amazon and pick up some books! Included in this list are some shorter books, some reference books, and chapter books. If you have younger students, please consider doing the books as a read-aloud. Some of the books have YouTube video links if I could locate them.
For the younger kids & early readers:
- Hurricanes! (Level 4 reader) by Lorraine Jean Hopping
- Science Comics: Wild Weather: Storms, Meteorology, and Climate by MK Reed
- Twisters! (Step into Reading) by Lucille Recht Penner
- Otis and the Tornado by Loren Long
Family books:
- Lightning by John Hamilton
- Wild Weather by Monalisa Sangutpa
- Hurricanes and Tornadoes by Angela Royston
- The Magic School Bus Inside a Hurricane by Joanna Cole
- Storms and Hurricanes – by Emily Bone
- Eye of the Storm: A book about Hurricanes by Rick Thomas
For the older kids who like historic fiction: (Please preview these books for your child.)
- I Survived the Joplin Tornado, 2011
- I Survived the Galveston Hurricane, 1900 by Lauren Tarshis
- Drowned City: Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans by Don Brown
Videos
There are several videos you can watch on the topic of weather listed below. We also opted to rent a movie that depicted tornado chasers in real life. I wanted to get the movie “Twister,” but I couldn’t locate it, so we settled on another excellent choice “Into the Storm” which is rated PG-13 and was made in 2013. If you like to let your children watch real-life movies on science topics, one of these may be for you! Please screen before letting kids watch, as the movies are realistic and scary. That being said, the other education videos we wanted on the weather are as follows:
- Tornadoes 101 – Video by National Geographic (5 min)
- The Science of Lightning – National Geographic (5 min)
- Magic School Bus Kicks up a Storm (26 min)
- What is a Hurricane? (4 min)
- The Dr. Binoc Show Hurricanes (4 min)
Tornado Experiment
First we studied strong storms and tornadoes. The girls picked out some books from the library to read about storms. My younger daughter in particular is fascinated by severe weather, so she enjoyed picking up facts about storms that have happened over the years, including the events in the “I Survived” series (see book list above).
We also spent a lot of time studying the sky and storms. The summer is the best season of the year to do this if you live anywhere in the south or the midwest.
My main takeaway for the girls about tornadoes and strong storms is the way they are formed. We picked up a free project from UCAR. The unit was designed for middle school students, but it worked perfectly for a quick tornado in a jar project for my then 5th and 6th graders. The video of the tornado in a jar is below.
In addition to doing an experiment with tornadic activity, I also created a worksheet on the parts of a tornado during a supercell thunderstorm. This worksheet shows how all the winds come together in a storm to form a tornado. It was a great supplement to our unit.
Hurricane Labeling
Living in Florida, we have sure experienced our fair share of hurricanes! During this unit, the girls studied the various terms relating to a hurricane: such as the parts of a hurricane as well as the terms related to their movement, such as track, spaghetti model, and hurricane warning.
There is a great free online hurricane simulator that your students can play around with: https://scijinks.gov/hurricane-simulation/. With this simulator, they can see how pressure winds and surface temperatures affect hurricanes. Below the simulator, you will find a list of the wind speed categories of a hurricane. Very important when we are talking about the strength of a storm!
Weather and Storms Homeschool Unit Wrap Up
That wraps it up for our weather and storms homeschool unit! See below for suggested supplies. If you have a local science museum or weather center, I highly suggest checking it out! For more science activities, don’t miss our unit on The Water Cycle.
Suggested Tornado Jar Supplies
- Water
- 8oz Jar with lid
- glitter (optional)
- white vinegar
- clear dish soap