Weather School / First Weather · ages 2 to 5

The weather rock in soft white fog with its big googly eyes showing, while a bright sun burns through above.

Foggy Days

Who took the street away this morning?

The weather rock outside under thick fog, waiting to be looked at.

The mission: guess first, then go look

On a foggy morning, guess how far you can see down your street: three houses, one house, or just the mailbox.

Now go look and count. Where do things fade away? Fog is a cloud lying down in the road, and it moved in without asking anybody.

Some mornings the air outside turns soft and white, and you cannot see far.

That is fog. It is a cloud that came all the way down to the ground.

So when you walk through fog, you are walking through a cloud.

Professor Weather Rock in a graduation cap, pointing upward with a wooden pointer.

Professor Weather Rock says

A foggy morning often means a clear night came first. The ground got cold under the open sky, and the air above it cooled until its water showed.

Rocktivity Time!

Pick a door. Every door is a good one.

Move like the weather

Walk like fog. Creep across the room so slowly and so quietly that nobody can tell you are moving. Fog never hurries. It just arrives.

Ask them

“What do you think fog feels like on your face?”

The Rocktivity

Breathe out slowly on a cold morning. That little cloud from your mouth is made the same way fog is: warm damp air meeting cold air.

When the fog is thick, try this

Stand at the window, pick one far thing, a tree or a sign, and guess how long until you can see it again. Fog burns off from wherever the sun finds it first.

Is the rock right?

You looked with your own eyes. The rock is outside looking too. Ask it what it sees, then decide together who read the sky better.

Words we learned

Fognounsay it: FOGA cloud sitting on the ground instead of up in the sky.

Dampadjectivesay it: DAMPJust a little bit wet, all over.

For the grown-up

Fog is condensation at nose height: air cooling until its moisture turns into droplets small enough to float. The breath trick is the same physics in miniature, and it has never once failed to be popular.

Take it off the screen

A colouring sheet with the big word to trace, plus the whole lesson in print. Free for any home or classroom.

Print the colouring sheet and lesson (PDF)

The trail continues

Fog is water floating in the air. On a freezing clear night, water from the air does a different trick: it lands and grows sparkles. Look at the grass before breakfast tomorrow.

Frosty Mornings knows who painted it.