Rainy Day Measuring
By Kristin Phillips
Grades: PreK-K, 1-2
Rainy Day Measuring is part of a lesson set on weather and the water cycle. Students learn about the scientific method of making a hypothesis, testing, and then measuring results. They will also be introduced to measuring with a metric ruler.
Math and Science concepts
Number and Operations:
Recognize how many
Connect number words and numerals to the quantities they represent
Estimation
Using a ruler
Measuring Centimeters
Science Operations:
Making a hypothesis
Testing for results
Understanding time and waiting for results
Factors that change results
Gathering Data
Discussing differences in results
We will begin the lesson with an activation activity where we discuss our water cycle bags that we just made for our weather unit. We will look at the part of the water cycle that represents rain. We discuss what rain is and why it happens and what it looks like and feels like and where it goes. We will talk about the weather on that specific day, and when we think it is going to rain. I will ask, “How do we measure rain?”
For the demonstration portion of the lesson I will use the pictures on the poster boards sequentially and show what we plan to do for this activity, discussing each portion individually. I will invite the students to share ideas of how they would set up the jar and where they would put it and why. Then we will address concerns or mistakes that could affect the amount of rain that is gathered. We will also talk about the way that we plan to measure the amount of rain we collect in our jars, and what kind of units we plan to use to measure the rain and why. We will estimate the amount of rain we think we may collect, and write a simple hypothesis on the chalkboard about our estimation. We will refer to the pictures one at a time throughout the demonstration.
Use these photos from http://teachyourtot.blogspot.com/2011/03/catch-rain.html.
For the application part of the lesson we will give each student a pint sized jar and go outside in the rain, and find an appropriate place to set it. The students will be asked to share their ideas about why and where they plan to set their jars. Then we will discuss how long we should wait to get our results.
After we collect a sufficient amount of rain we can bring in the jars and measure them. By setting a ruler as flat as possible on the bottom of the jar and looking through the side of the jar at the place where the rain comes to on the ruler. Then students can record this number on a paper and write centimeters or cm after it. The teacher as a demonstration can do the first measurement. The jars can also be left overnight and then measured if the rain is falling slowly.
For integration the students can discuss what they learned about placement and measurement. They should also look at the big picture of the water cycle and see where rain fits in to that cycle. We can discuss why it’s important that we have rain and what it does for the earth. We can also discuss why we want more or less rain in different seasons.