Children's books and activities
Weather
Do you know any kids who are fascinated by tornadoes and hurricanes and the science of measuring and predicting weather patterns? We've gathered up a great collection of books, activities, apps, and websites for learning all about weather.
Try pairing fiction with nonfiction books and exploring different genres (like poetry and biographies) and formats (like graphic novels and audio books). You'll be creating your own "text sets" — collections of texts focused on a specific topic, such as weather. Reading widely in this way helps children build background knowledge, vocabulary, and comprehension skills.
You might also want to explore our free toolkit: Weather Wonders.
Great Fiction & Nonfiction Books
Age Level: 3-6 years old
Print List
All the Water in the World
By: George Ella Lyon
Age Level: 3-6 years old
Nonfiction
Rich, rhythmic language combines with lush illustration to poetically describe the water cycle...
Clouds
By: Anne Rockwell
Age Level: 3-6 years old
Nonfiction
Learn about 10 different types of clouds — cirrus, stratus, and cumulus — as well as...
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
By: Judi Barrett
Age Level: 3-6 years old
Fiction
Residents of Chewandswallow were accustomed to their predictable weather which kept them in...
Come On, Rain
By: Karen Hesse
Age Level: 3-6 years old
Tessie, the child narrator, is the first to see the long-awaited rain clouds form. She and her...
Finn Throws a Fit
By: David Elliott
Age Level: 3-6 years old
Hurricane!
By: Jonathan London
Age Level: 3-6 years old
Fiction
Told from the perspective of a boy who witnesses the sky growing ominously purple and rushes to...
Kate, Who Tamed the Wind
By: Liz Garton Scanlon
Age Level: 3-6 years old
Fiction
A wild wind blows on the tippy-top of a steep hill, turning everything upside down for the man...
Kite Flying
By: Grace Lin
Age Level: 3-6 years old
Fiction
The young narrator describes how she and her family each contribute to a handsome kite which...
Like a Windy Day
By: Frank Asch, Devin Asch
Age Level: 3-6 years old
A child imagines being like the wind: playing with hats and leaves, zooming and racing...
On the Same Day in March
By: Marilyn Singer
Age Level: 3-6 years old
Otis and the Tornado
By: Loren Long
Age Level: 3-6 years old
Rain
By: Manya Stojic
Age Level: 3-6 years old
When rain comes to the parched African savanna, the animals use all their senses to track the...
Rain Play
By: Cynthia Cotten
Age Level: 3-6 years old
Sun
By: Sam Usher
Age Level: 3-6 years old
Fiction
This rhyming read-aloud celebrates how we’re all connected under the sun. As readers are...
Thanking the Moon
By: Grace Lin
Age Level: 3-6 years old
The Blizzard
By: Betty Ren Wright
Age Level: 3-6 years old
The Snowy Day
By: Ezra Jack Keats
Age Level: 3-6 years old
Fiction
No book has captured the magic and sense of possibility of the first snowfall better than The...
The Weather Girls
By: Aki
Age Level: 3-6 years old
Sixteen busy girls introduce readers to the different weather associated with the seasons as...
This Beautiful Day
By: Richard Jackson
Age Level: 3-6 years old
Fiction
Filled with motion and rhythm, this celebration of rain follows three children as they start a...
Thunder Cake
By: Patricia Polacco
Age Level: 3-6 years old
Waiting Out the Storm
By: JoAnn Early Macken
Age Level: 3-6 years old
Water Is Water
By: Miranda Paul
Age Level: 3-6 years old
Nonfiction
Lyrical language and handsome, realistic watercolors present water in its many forms, from...
Watersong
By: Tim McCanna
Age Level: 3-6 years old
In onomatopoeia, the author takes the reader on a wonderful journey as a fox seeks shelter from...
Weather: Poems for All Seasons
By: Lee Bennett Hopkins
Age Level: 3-6 years old
Wild Weather
By: Katharine Kenah
Age Level: 3-6 years old
Wolf in the Snow
By: Matthew Cordell
Age Level: 3-6 years old
Fiction
A girl is lost in a snowstorm. A wolf cub is lost, too. How will they find their way home?...
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Print List
A Drop of Water
By: Walter Wick
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Nonfiction
Filled with stop-action and close-up photography, this book features images like a single...
Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain
By: Verna Aardema
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Fiction
The tale of herdsman Ki-pat is set on a dry African plain and is told in the familiar cadence of...
Down Comes the Rain
By: Franklyn Branley
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Flash, Crash, Rumble, and Roll
By: Franklyn Branley
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Heat Wave
By: Eileen Spinelli
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Fiction
The mercury is climbing in Lumberville, and the folks are doing everything they can to keep cool...
How Ben Franklin Stole the Lightning
By: Rosalyn Schanzer
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Hurricane
By: David Wiesner
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Fiction
As the sky grays and the leaves swirl by in a "green blizzard," two young boys and...
Hurricanes
By: Seymour Simon
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Hurricanes, their origin and their destructive power (as well as their relatives, the tropical...
Hurricanes
By: Gail Gibbons
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Nonfiction
Imagine a force that can toss boats around like toys, wash away bridges, and create waves as...
I Face the Wind
By: Vicki Cobb
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Children are encouraged to observe as experiment as they learn about wind and air as well as...
If You Lived Here: Houses of the World
By: Giles Laroche
Age Level: 6-9 years old
It's Raining
By: Gail Gibbons
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Nonfiction
Kissimmee Pete and the Hurricane
By: Jan Day
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Fiction
Look at the Weather
By: Britta Teckentrup
Age Level: 6-9 years old
This immersive nonfiction title is just as much about feelings about the weather as it is about...
Magic School Bus Inside a Hurricane
By: Joanna Cole
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Fiction
Count on Ms. Frizzle to teach anything but an ordinary lesson on meteorology. Flying through the...
National Geographic Kids Everything Weather
By: Kathy Furgang
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Weather can be wild, freaky, and fascinating! Powerful twisters roar through homes; earthquakes...
Pattan's Pumpkin: A Traditional Flood Story from Southern India
By: Chitra Soundar
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Fiction
In this retelling of the flood myth, young Pattan's amazing pumpkin grows big enough to save the...
Sector 7
By: David Wiesner
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Wondrous things happen in the skies above Manhattan in this wordless book that explores what...
Snow Birds
By: Kirsten Hall
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Nonfiction
Snow Is Falling
By: Franklyn Branley
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Snow is magical and beautiful and sometimes even dangerous. Through both observation and...
Snowflake Bentley
By: Jacqueline Martin Briggs
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Strong lines and narrative combine in this picture book biography of the Vermonter who figured...
The Big Storm
By: Bruce Hiscock
Age Level: 6-9 years old
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
By: William Kamkwamba, Bryan Mealer
Age Level: 6-9 years old
When fourteen-year-old William Kamkwamba's Malawi village was hit by a drought, everyone's crops...
The Fog
By: Kyo Maclear
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Fiction
When a fog rolls into Icyland, it prevents Warble, a small yellow warbler, from enjoying his...
The Kid's Book of Weather Forecasting
By: Mark Breen, Kathleen Friestad
Age Level: 6-9 years old
In this hands-on science book, kids learn how to make a barometer, record their observations in...
The Legend of Lightning and Thunder
By: Paula Ikuutaq Rumbolt
Age Level: 6-9 years old
The Weather's Bet
By: Ed Young
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Fiction
In the retelling of this Aesop fable, the wind, rain, and sun compete to make a shepherd take...
The Wild Weather Book
By: Fiona Danks
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Thunder Rose
By: Jerdine Nolan
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Fiction
In this tall tale, Thunder Rose vows to grow up to be more than just big and strong,...
Tornado! The Story Behind these Twisting, Turning, Spinning and Spiraling Storms
By: Judith Fradin
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Tornadoes
By: Seymour Simon
Age Level: 6-9 years old
One of nature’s most volatile weather events is the tornado. In this updated edition, the author...
Weather
By: Seymour Simon
Age Level: 6-9 years old
What causes the weather and its patterns? How do we measure weather? All your meteorological...
Weather Words and What They Mean
By: Gail Gibbons
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Award-winning nonfiction writer Gibbons clearly explains and illustrates four big weather...
What Will the Weather Be?
By: Lynda DeWitt
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Age Level: 9-12 years old
Print List
I, Matthew Henson: Polar Explorer
By: Carole Boston Weatherford
Age Level: 9-12 years old
Nonfiction
Matthew Henson, an African American explorer, accompanied Robert Peary to the North Pole where...
One Well: The Story of Water on Earth
By: Rochelle Strauss
Age Level: 9-12 years old
Nonfiction
All water is connected. Every raindrop, lake, underground river and glacier is part of a single...
Hands-on Activities
Build on what you're learning together through books with these family-friendly activities, experiments, and crafts.
-
Animals in Winter
National Wildlife Federation -
Baking Soda Volcano
Thought Co -
Bottle Thermometer
PBS Parents -
Iceberg Experiment
PBS KIDS -
Kitchen Snowflakes
Reading Rockets -
My Weather Report
Scholastic -
Rain in a Jar
Learn Play Imagine -
Rainstick I
PBS Parents -
Rainstick II
Frugal Fun for Boys and Girls -
Twirling in the Breeze
PBS KIDS SciGirls -
Water, Ice and Steam
Start with a Book -
Weather Station
Se7en -
Weather Vane I
PBS Parents -
Wind Tubes
Exploratorium
Summer Writing
Give kids a chance to flex their writing muscles all summer long. Try one of these prompts, selected from our writing contest archives and other literacy organizations.
Great Websites for Kids
Dive deeper into topics of interest with these media-rich and interactive sites.
-
Brain Pop: Forces of Nature
-
Brain Pop: Weather
-
Climate Kids (NASA)
-
Connect with Weather
-
Gizmos: Weather, Climate and Seasons
-
Kids Questions About Weather
-
National Geographic Kids: Wacky Weather
-
Old Farmer's Almanac for Kids
-
Sid the Science Kid Weather Surprise (PBS Kids)
-
Talking Positively to Kids About Scary Weather (PBS Parents)
-
Tree House Weather Kids
-
Weather Channel
-
Weather Wiz Kids
-
Young Meteorologist Games
Great Podcasts for Kids
Listen and learn with these podcasts especially for kids. These podcasts are free and easy to listen to from any device via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or Stitcher — or from Listen Notes, a podcast search engine.
-
A Dinosaur Discovery and the Hottest Place on Earth
Fun Kids Science Weekly -
But Why: How Do Meteorologists Predict The Weather?
Vermont Public Radio
-
Fun Kids Science Weekly
Fun Kids
-
Head in the Clouds
Wow in the World (NPR)
-
Save It for a Rainy Day
Wow in the World (NPR)
-
The Big Melt
Earth Rangers / Gen-Z Media
-
The Hurricane of the Future
Tumble Science Podcast
-
The Weather Balloon, the Girl Scouts, and the Unicorn
Tumble Science Podcast
Educational Apps
Educational apps recommended by Common Sense Media and other trusted reviewers.
More Themed Resources
Growing Readers Tip Sheets
Simple activities for parents and kids to do together to build reading, writing, and critical thinking skills. Read online or print the PDF.
Our Summer Blog
Washington DC for Kids
