Dad of Divas' Reviews: The Magic School Bus Weather Lab Makes Science Come Alive

Monday, August 26, 2013

The Magic School Bus Weather Lab Makes Science Come Alive

Magic School Bus Weather Lab
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About the Product
Ms. Frizzle and her students take Young Scientists on a wild ride with The Magic School Bus as they explore the weather. Young Scientists learn about the weather by spinning a pinwheel, making a tornado in a bottle, swirling a paper snake, recreating the water cycle, creating a rain cloud, using a sun dial, constructing a barometer, catching a rainbow, and learning about the greenhouse effect. Young Scientists become their own meteorologist by building the bus-shaped weather station with a thermometer, rain gauge, wind meter, wind vane, and compass. The weather is then tracked on the enclosed weather chart with colorful stickers. This captivating bus-shaped kit comes packed with lots of science components, 28 colorful experiment cards, weather station, weather chart, stickers, and data notebook to record observations. Seatbelts, everyone! Get ready to become a meteorologist with Weather Lab! (Ages: 5 and up)


My Take on the Product
The weather lab by Scholastic arrived in an attractive box decorated as a school bus with Ms Frizzle and her students. The kit included most of the materials you and your child will need to perform the activities. The activity cards were excellent. They included a description of the activity, the materials needed for each activity, and the method. The activity cards were easy to read and the directions were easy to follow. Over 20 activities were included in the weather lab. There were some materials you would need to provide. For example, when we made the tornado, we needed 2 empty liter soda bottles.

Most of the activities were appropriate for the nine year old I worked with. However she had some difficulty with the actual concepts. It was a good way to introduce her to the concepts and hopefully she has more of an understanding of all the equipment and the details of weather forecasting now.

Some of the activities she enjoyed the most were: setting up the weather station and learning about the parts, making the compass and watching it continuously turning to north, making the tornado and the disappearing rainbow.

I explained the daily weather report chart with the included stickers and hope we will keep track of that each day and then analyze it at the end of the month to see what kind of weather we actually experienced where we live.

If you have an older child who enjoys science, in particular the weather, I encourage you to take a look at the weather lab as a gift for that child.


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