Looking for a really quick and simple weather tracker printable for your child? I got you!
I have created a weather tracker printable that you can use for just a minute each day, so your child can see the long-term patterns occurring over a month, or even more!
Affiliate disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, I may earn a small commission from qualifying purchases from Amazon.com, at no cost to you.
“It’s sunny, so it’s hot!”
Have you ever heard anything like this from a young child?
Children have all sorts of misconceptions about basic weather patterns! This is totally normal!
Another very common one, is that children believe that it’s going to snow on Christmas! All of the Christmas books and shows have snow, so it only makes sense to them!
Of course, we know that most likely, there won’t be snow on the actual Christmas day.
It’s so important to teach them the correct information!
By using my weather tracker printable, you can begin to prove their misconceptions as incorrect. (Gently and respectfully, of course!)
For example, you might see the sun shining, and ask your child to guess what kind of temperature it might be.
Now, if it’s mid-January, and it’s been cold for a while, you could could point out that just because it’s sunny, doesn’t mean that it’s hot. In fact, some of the coldest days are actually sunny ones!
Weather Tracker Printable in the Classroom
As a kindergarten teacher, we checked the weather daily as part of our morning circle.
This was a great time to examine data! We recorded the weather, and discussed things we noticed or observed.
The children would make observations like, “There have been more sunny days than snowy days.”
Each month, we would replace the weather tracker, and start again!
Keeping Track of Temperatures for Kids
Teaching about the outside temperature can be a little tricky for younger kids, because the numbers don’t mean a whole lot to them yet.
That’s why I developed a color-coded thermometer! I used it in my classroom, and included it here on the printable.
Young children are still developing their number sense, but they understand colors! And they understand color-coding, too!
They understand that green means go and red means stop! At a sink, they understand that blue is for cold water, while red is for hot.
Similarly, the thermometer on the weather tracker is color-coded, too! There are particular colors that covers a range of temperatures. For example, the color green covers the temperatures 40 through 60 degrees.
A range is a lot easier for the children to process and understand.
My students would often talk about how it feels like a “yellow day” out. Or we might talk about how next week, it’s supposed to be so hot that it’ll be a “red day.”
This allows the students to understand the differences in the temperatures without having to have full number sense just yet.
Colors they totally get!
The color version of the printable has the colors on the thermometer for you.
If you choose to use the gray scale version, you will notice that there’s a spot to be colored on the thermometer.
On the first of each month, have your child color in each temperature block as the color listed. Then, it’ll be the perfect reference point for them for the remainder of the month!
View Weather Over Time
I highly suggest to keep your old monthly weather tracker printables!
Stick them in a folder, so you can refer back to them!
Your child might mention the snow that we had last month. You can look back and see when it was!
Or maybe, you want to demonstrate to your child that the temperature progressively gets cooler throughout the fall. You can pull out the weather trackers from September through December, and your child can visually see that it does in fact get cooler then.
Being able to concretely show these things that are actually abstract to our children does wonders for them!
Extension Questions Included!
The weather tracker printable will be an amazing opportunity to begin exploring data and analyzing it! This sounds a little advanced, but it’s actually very simple!
Asking things like, “How many cloudy days have we had?” gives your child a chance to look at the information that’s recorded and determine an answer based on it! Simple, right?
In this packet, you will receive a list of extension questions and prompts that you can use to discuss the data collected in the weather tracker printable. You can use them daily or just periodically!
If you’re looking for even further extensions, check out WeatherWizKids.com!
Weather Manipulatives
If you are searching for awesome materials to extend your child’s understanding of weather, I have some great ones to share with you!
You can use these casually, or you might use them in conjunction with a weather unit!
Conclusion
If you’re looking to keep track of the weather with your child on a daily basis, but don’t want to devote a ton of time to it, this super simple weather tracker printable is what you need!
Download the weather tracker below!
Related
Pre K Workbooks: The Very Best One that Your Child Needs
Firefighter Preschool Unit: 9 Super Easy Firefighter Activities for Pre-K
5 Play-Based Jan Brett Activities for Preschool: A Winter Mini Unit
Pin It!
