Make a Winter Weather Pictograph

By Erica Loop

Watching the winter snow pile up on a grassy yard is nice, but investigating it is even better! Boost your child's science and observation skills by guiding her through this winter weather-filled project. She'll chart the amount of snow or hours of rain that have fallen at your house this winter using a ruler, measuring tape, or even her hands! This ongoing seasonal graphing activity will even enlist her math skills and organization ability.


What You Need:

• Poster board
• Markers
• Ruler or other measuring device

What You Do:

1. Discuss the season of winter with your child. Ask her to tell you what types of weather might be seen and felt during this season.
2. Use a dark marker and a straight edge, such as a ruler, to help your child create a grid graph on the poster board. Make sure that each cell is large enough for a picture or a number to fit in.
3. Have her choose what she would like the rows and columns to represent. For example, each row may be labeled with the month and date number, while each column might be for possible winter weather types. Remind her that it does not just snow in the winter. She will want to include pictures of snow, rain, sleet, ice, clouds, and sun.
4. Ask her to draw pictures of the winter weather types at the tops of the columns.
5. Observe the weather. If it is sunny or cloudy have your child note that by finding the weather type column and the date row. If it's snowing, try measuring the accumulation with a ruler or other device. Make sure that you use the same device all winter. Ask her to write down the correct measured snowfall total in the corresponding graph cell.
6. Repeat every day until winter ends (or until the chart runs out of space)!

Try making other types of graphs with your child. Bar graphs or pie charts are other fun ways to explore basic math concepts.