Subscribe

5th grade · Science · Unit 7 of 15

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.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) teks student expectation: 5.10(A) · the Sun and ocean driving the water cycle and 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 Texas

In the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), this is unit 7 of 15 in 5th grade Science, after Light and before The Rock Cycle.

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: Texas Education Agency (TEA)

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

    Which cloud is tall and dark and can bring thunderstorms?

    • cirrus
    • cumulonimbus
    • stratus

  2. Question 2

    Which tool measures temperature?

    • thermometer
    • barometer
    • rain gauge

  3. Question 3

    Which tool measures how much rain fell?

    • rain gauge
    • thermometer
    • wind vane

  4. Question 4

    Which tool measures air pressure?

    • anemometer
    • barometer
    • thermometer

  5. Question 5

    What is wind?

    • moving air
    • a kind of cloud
    • moving water

  6. Question 6

    Why do weather stations record data over many days?

    • to spot patterns and make better predictions
    • to stop storms
    • to make the day longer

More 5th grade