Weather or Not
Science is fun! Introduce your class to this zany and engaging book with some simple water experiments.

1. Borrow a water table from a science teacher, or create your own with a folding table, empty plastic containers of various sizes, measuring cups, andÉwater.
2. Allow your students some time to play with water. Ask them to measure out various amounts of water.
3. Let them taste, smell, and feel water in its liquid state.
4. Freeze water into cubes or other interesting shapes in a school refrigerator.
5. Once the water is frozen, allow students to taste, smell, and feel water in its solid state.
6. Help your class realize that water expands when it is frozen.
7. If possible, heat water to the boiling point and allow students to observe the steam (water in its gaseous state) rising.
8. Ask students to provide examples of weather-water (rain, fog, snow, hail, etc.) Have them draw pictures of as many types of precipitation as they can come up with.

1. Read Pink Snow and Other Weird Weather together as a class.
2. As you read each example of crazy weather in the book, be sure to allow students to see the illustrations.
3. Before coming to the scientific explanation, ask students to guess what might have caused the weather.
4. When you have finished the book, conclude with a discussion of proper safety procedures, both in your school and for students at home. If you live in a tornado-prone area, you may wish to hold an informal "tornado drill" for your class. Talk about what children should do if they are outside during an electrical storm or other wild weather.

Weather Central
Using different colored construction paper, have your students make their own weather displays.

1. Provide white paper for clouds and snow flakes, yellow paper for sun, gray paper for rain, and blue paper for clear skies.
2. Over the course of a few days or a week, have them chart the day's weather on their displays.
3. If possible, ask each student to do some general predicting. For instance, if it is hot and sunny today, will tomorrow likely be warm and sunny or cold and snowy? If it is very cloudy, is rain or snow likely?
4. Talk about what causes wind, rain, snow, and rainbows.

You'll need:

• 2 clean 2-liter soda bottles
• 1 tornado tube (available from many school and science supply companies) water

1. Fill one of the soda bottles 2/3 of the way with water.
2. Insert one end of the tornado tube into that bottle, then turn the second bottle upside down and place over the other end of the tube.
3. Make sure that both ends of the tube are fitted snugly into the bottles. Holding your tornado simulator by the tube, swirl the apparatus around, then flip it over so that the filled bottle is on top.
4. Watch the mini tornado that forms in the upper bottle as the water flows into the lower bottle.
5. Ask your students to record their observations about the tornado they've created.

1. Ask your class if any of them have experienced any type of wacky weather.
2. Have each student describe the incident in as much detail as possible.
3. Let the student and classmates make guesses as to what might have caused it.
4. Have the class do research, in the library or on the Internet, to find a scientific explanation for the incident.
5. Ask students who have not experienced wacky weather first-hand to come up with an invented incident and explain its cause.
6. Encourage them to use their imaginations—nature provides lots of inspiration and is a tough act to follow!

1. Provide white or blue construction paper, for a background, and multi-colored crayons.
2. Post the classroom rainbows on a bulletin board, or tape them to windows or walls.