Weather School / First Weather · ages 2 to 5
Hot and Cold
Is the shade really colder, or does it just feel that way?
The mission: guess first, then go look
Guess: will the sidewalk in the sun feel different from the sidewalk in the shade? It is the same sidewalk, remember.
Go put one hand on each and count to five. Different? The air did not change. The sunshine did.
On hot days your body sweats. The sweat dries and that cools you down.
On cold days your body shivers. Shivering makes a little heat.
A thermometer tells you the number. Your skin tells you the truth.
Professor Weather Rock says
Shade is not cooler air. It is the very same air, with the sunshine taken out of it.
Rocktivity Time!
Pick a door. Every door is a good one.
Move like the weather
Show hot and cold with your body. Hot: flop like melty ice cream, fan your face, pant like the rock in July. Cold: hug your arms tight, shiver, chatter your teeth. Your body already knows this lesson.
Ask them
“Does the shade feel different from the sun? What about a metal slide?”
The Rocktivity
Touch a metal thing and a wooden thing in the same sunshine. The metal is hotter. Both were in the same sun, so something else is going on.
On a hot day, try this
Put two cups of cold water outside, one in the sun and one in the shade. Guess which will warm up first, then sip-test them both after a while. That is a real experiment, and you get to drink the equipment.
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
For the grown-up
That is a real puzzle with a real answer (metal moves heat faster), and it is perfectly fine to say 'let us find out together' rather than explain.
Rocktivity
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.
The trail continues
At the end of a warm day, the sun packs up and heads for the edge of the sky. Go watch it leave. It never sneaks out quietly. It makes a whole show of it.
Sunset Colors has front-row seats.