Saturday, 4 July 2015

Snow in July

After our wilful abandonment of the timetable earlier in the week, it was time to knuckle down in the blissful sunshine. Cultural obligations require me to point out that it's far too hot and it won't last so we have to prepare ourselves for (moaning about) the grey weather which will undoubtedly blight the great British summer.

This is a perfect time to learn about rain and snow.

I'd covered water cycle with K earlier in the year so it was revision for him but a new topic for W. We found some fantastic little wheels for showing stages of the cycle and with the sunshine outside our water cycle experiment was a breeze. Which was good because it's been really hot today. Too hot really. I mean would a few degrees cooler be too much to ask?

W's commitment to the experiment was admirable as he put 3 Lego people onto his island with a cheerful comment that if everything went well they'd be drowned by tea time. Slightly sinister but then this is science.



We learned how snow is formed, which is roughly the moment I realised I have NO IDEA HOW SNOW IS FORMED. I get the gist; it's made of tiny ice-cubes carved by the cloud elves, but when K asked why some water vapour falls as rain, some hail, some sleet and some snow ... I blagged it with a response about air temperature but the smart cookie spotted my lack of conviction and requested further clarification.

I turned to google, the font of all knowledge, finding a nice summary and some precipitation I never even knew existed. I thought snow pellets were what you fed to snow rabbits. http://www.theweatherprediction.com/preciptypes/
In a nutshell it's all to do with the bands of temperature in the troposphere.

The Met Office is good too, this is their area of expertise after all, and they have a handy video although there's nothing in there about the cloud elves.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/learning/snow/how-is-snow-formed

A few cut out snowflakes later and a brief diversion into hexagons; then we learnt about similes and metaphors before tackling a quick acrostic poem on Snow. Literacy side notes on what creative writing is and identifying occasions where similes/metaphors aren't appropriate.


I asked W why snow was naughty as a naughty boy. "Because it's cold."

OK then.