Wind

To explain how wind can be measured and to have some fun blowing things around. 

There is nothing better than a lovely windy day that blows your hair and the leaves around everywhere.  It is difficult to explain to a child where the wind comes from.  It involves air and air pressure and it you would like to find out more you can do so here
However it is fun to see what types of things blow away and how we measure wind via the Beaufort scale

Science concepts/experiments:

Dancing the Beaufort Scale
I explained the Beaufort scale of wind strength using this handout.  I got all the children and adults to stand up to be trees in the garden and then we went though the Beaufort scale. The children were little trees and the adults large trees and as the scale went up parents and children made the corresponding movements. (Eg Moving fingers for leaves, arms for branches, whole body for swaying trees).  The children had lots of fun being trees.

Will it blow away? 
I gathered a few objects light and heavy and we experimented to see if they could be blown away using a hairdryer on low and then high settings. We used object such as cotton wool, leaves, pegs, stones, paperclips, fruit etc.

Ping pong ball balancing experiment
While I had the hairdryer out I thought that I would demonstrate the ping pong ball balancing experiment which is an experiment about balancing air pressure and gravity. All you need is a ping pong ball and a hairdryer. 
Turn the hairdryer on high and gently place the ball in the air stream.  What how it hovers in the air flow. This point is where the air pressure pushing up from the hairdryer 'wind' is equal to gravity.  You can find further explanations of this experiment here.

Book suggestions

 

 

The umbrella - Ingrid & Dieter Schubert.
Grandpa and Thomas and the green umbrella - Pamela Allen
A windy day - Sheila M. Bird
Flora's very windy day - by Jeanne Birdsall
The windy farm - Doug MacLeod & Craig Smith.
The windy day - Anna Milbourne
And red galoshes  - Glenda Millard
The wind blew - Pat Hutchins

Craft suggestions

Make your own kite.
Make a pinwheel.  Traditionally these use a split pin in the centre however we have judged them too dangerous for toddlers. Instead I used pipe cleaners to attach the cardboard pinwheel to a long icypole stick which is demonstrated here.   I also pre-punched the middle hole as I thought this would be too tricky for parents and kids.