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5th grade · Science · Unit 6 of 9

Weather and the Water Cycle

What makes the weather change

What your child practices

How the Sun, air, water and land interact to cause daily weather, the water cycle, tools for measuring weather, and why long-term forecasting is hard.

Maine Learning Results learning standard: 5-ESS2-1 · how the air, water and land interact to make weather

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Weather is what the air is like at a certain time and place.
  2. Rain, snow, sleet and hail are all precipitation.
  3. Warm air rises. Low pressure usually brings clouds and rain. High pressure brings clear skies.
  4. A thermometer measures temperature, a rain gauge measures rain and an anemometer measures wind speed.

Example: The air pressure is falling. What weather might come? Low pressure usually brings clouds and precipitation. Answer: cloudy, wet weather

Weather and the Water Cycle in Maine

In the Maine Learning Results, this is unit 6 of 9 in 5th grade Science, after Measuring Matter and before Energy from the Sun.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Maine Department of Education

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    A warm front is when…

    • warm air moves over cooler air
    • winds stop
    • cold air pushes under warm air

  2. Question 2

    Cold air tends to…

    • rise quickly
    • sink
    • turn into rain

  3. Question 3

    A wind vane shows…

    • how fast it blows
    • the direction the wind comes from
    • how much rain fell

  4. Question 4

    Thin, wispy clouds high in the sky are called…

    • cumulonimbus
    • nimbus
    • cirrus

  5. Question 5

    Which cloud is tall and dark and can bring thunderstorms?

    • cirrus
    • cumulonimbus
    • stratus

  6. Question 6

    Why can a town beside a big lake have milder weather than a town far inland?

    • air has no weight
    • land and water heat and cool differently
    • water never moves

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