DIY Homeschooler

Explore the wind! “What’s in the Wind? Windy Day Experiments” by Melissa Pinkley originally appeared in Home School Enrichment Magazine.

The article includes three windy day experiments:

• Building an anemometer to measure how fast the wind is moving.
• Finding out what is in the wind by capturing some of the small particles it carries.
• Making a weather vane to see which direction the wind is coming from.

A perfect spring learning opportunity!

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Additional Resources

Where Wind Comes From (archived)
Discusses wind origins, patterns and the jet stream.

Beaufort Scales
Wind speed chart.

Wind Chill Index
Chart from NOAA.

Activities

Wind Spinners
Fun craft.

A Variety of Ways to Make a Windsock
Other ideas for determining the direction the wind is coming from.

See the Wind
Another experiment from the U.S. Department of Energy that helps the investigator see that the wind varies in speed the higher up you go.

Global Wind Patterns (archived)
Quick and easy exercise from NASA to help understand the earth’s wind patterns.

Books

“The North Wind and the Sun”
Fable from The Aesop for Children.

Unit Studies & Lesson Plans

“The Wind” by Robert Louis Stevenson
From our Online Poetry Anthology.

“Who Has Seen the Wind” by Christina G. Rossetti
Another from our Online Poetry Anthology.

Fun and Wonderful Kites
Another great free unit study find!

Who Has Seen the Wind
Object lesson using the wind to illustrate how we can know God is there.

Printables & Notebooking Pages

Beaufort Scale
Printable from NOAA for identifying the wind strength on a given day.

Science Experiment Notebooking Pages
Free download from NotebookingNook.com with lots of options for using the scientific method of investigation.