Every year I read “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” by Judi Barrett aloud as part of our weather study. After the reading we discuss the wacky weather and brainstorm weather words and food words. (We get very hungry doing this!) The children are given a weather forecast template and fill in their own Wacky Weather Forecast with the food and weather words. They love to write about a shower of orange juice, a drizzle of chocolate, cotton candy clouds, or a tomato tornado. After the rough drafts are written, the children edit their writing and write a good copy. They also are given the opportunity to illustrate the wacky weather forecast. The children create pictures using crayon, followed by a water color layer. We usually display the writing and picture together in the hallway. They are placed in the hall for a week or two and then sent home. Until this year…..

This year we decided to “tech” it up a bit! The children are excited to write their report as before and illustrate it, but we will share it differently. They are going to practice reading their weather forecast out loud, and then each child will be filmed reading it sitting at a desk in front of green screen. We will then scan the pictures into the computer and use them as the background for their weather forecast. The children were very excited about the project today. (Today’s classroom blog reporters chose to write about it today and they called it a fun project!) We have already filmed a few students reading their forecast and we are going to look at these and learn from them. I hope I can get the kids to read with more expression, and they will learn they need to practice reading their forecast a few more times before the filming. We will film more tomorrow and should have the pictures finished as well.

Stay tuned….the first Wacky Weather Forecast video will be posted soon!