Cloudy with a chance of...what?

Students will enjoy reading about a town where no one ever goes hungry because the sky provides food while learning about weather, healthy and unhealthy foods, and creating a database.

A lesson plan for grades 2–4 English Language Arts and Science

By BJ Larson and Paula Sharpe

About the authors

BJ Larson teaches fourth grade at Union Grove Elementary School in the Iredell-Statesville School System.

Learn more

• The Watercycle Basic information about the water cycle
• Drippy the Raindrop Interactive water cycle website for kids

Related pages

• Port Discover: Students will enjoy visiting this new hands-on science and health center which is geared to the pre-k to fifth grade curriculum.
• Horizons Unlimited: This wonderful education center and museum provides hands-on programs for students in the areas of history and the physical and biological sciences.
• Fun with fruits and vegetables: The activities will help the student identify, describe, and classify fruits and vegetables, and learn how each grows.

Related topics

• Learn more about healthful living, meteorology, nutrition, and science.

Legal

Learning outcomes

Students will be able to:

• discriminate between fact, fiction, and opinion
• form opinions about the quality of a text(setting-language use)
• compare and contrast within and between text (facts, characters, author’s purpose)
• create graphic organizers (webs, story maps)
• select and use relevant information for discussion, further reading, writing, or a follow-up task
• use informal writing to facilitate learning
• use word recognition skills (compound words)
• form opinions on healthy and unhealthy foods
• use a spreadsheet for collecting and recording data

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

3 weeks

Materials/resources

• Book: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett and drawn by Ron Barrett Scholastic Inc., 1978
• KWL chart
• T-chart
• Story web chart
• Story map with the 5 W’s
• Health Book
• Guidelines of the Food Pyramid

Technology resources

• Internet-connected computer
• Inspiration Software from Inspiration Software, Inc.

Pre-activities

Students should be familiar with:

• the concept of story mapping that includes the beginning, middle, and ending
• compound words

Activities

Before reading:

1. Preview and predict by looking at cover of book. Ask: Why is the older man holding a plate and utensils with this umbrella?
2. Review vocabulary: Use KWL similarity (what you think the words means, what the word actually means, illustration) using the weather words attachment. Use these words also to create a database.
3. Review compound words: What are compounds? (two short words combined to make one word)
4. Teacher conducts oral reading of Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs. During reading interrupt periodically to see if students are following along with events and what’s happening.
5. Directed Reading: Give students Questions for Discussion

to think about while reading. After reading, students will be asked to answer the following questions:

• Where is Chewandswallow located? (across an ocean, over lots of huge bumpy mountains, across three hot deserts, and one smaller ocean)
• What did the people do with the leftovers? Why? (took them home and put them in their refrigerators in case they got hungry between meals)
• Discuss the different things that came out of the sky. (soup, juice, mashed potatoes, green peas, hamburgers, brussels sprouts, peanut butter, broccoli, cheese, tomatoes, and meatballs)
• What actually falls from the sky? Explain the different forms of precipitation.
6. Briefly explain to students that water that falls from the sky can change from a liquid to a solid.
   • sleet: water droplets that fall from the atmosphere and freeze into ice pellets before hitting the earth
   • hail: frozen water droplets that grow larger while being held inside a cloud by strong updrafts
   • rain: water droplets that fall from the atmosphere to the earth
   • freezing rain: water droplets that come from the atmosphere to the earth
   • snow: ice crystals that leave the cloud and do not melt before hitting the earth
   • atmosphere: the layer of air that surrounds the earth
   • precipitation: any form of water that falls to the earth from the atmosphere
7. Explain the water cycle: the process of melting, precipitation, evaporation, condensation, and erosion. If you have access to the BrainPop website, in the science section there is a movie on the watercycle you can watch with students.

Play the Droplet and the Water Cycle game on NASA’s For Kids Only Earth Science Enterprise website.

8. In the book, a reference is made to the Sanitation Department cleaning up after meals. Ask the students, what do they think the author is saying about people’s responsibility toward their environment?
9. Comprehension Skill: Cause and effect (use a T-chart). Have students identify cause and effect with examples from the story. First one is modeled by the teacher:

   Cause: A big pancake fell on the school.
   Effect: School was closed

   Cause: Too much spaghetti fell on the town.
   Effect: ?

   Cause: The townspeople ate too much cream cheese and jelly sandwiches.
   Effect: ?

   Cause: There was a pepper storm.

   Effect: ?

10. In the concluding discussion, ask:
    • What caused the people of Chewandswallow to leave the town? (stomach aches, sneezing, the town was a mess)
    • Is the story fiction or non-fiction? (fiction)
    • Are there any parts that stuck out in your mind as something you really liked or would like to change? Any parts you did not like how would you change to make them more to your likely?
11. Complete a story map using the Inspiration Software template for Language Arts-Literacy Web to answer the five W’s (Who, What, When, Where, and Why).
12. Nutrition activity:
    • Introduction. In the town of Chewandswallow, the people did not have to decide what to eat for their meals. All of their food came from the sky and they had to eat what the weather brought to them. You have to make choices many times a day about what to eat. Do you know what kinds of food to choose to keep your body healthy? See the USDA website to download a Food Guide Pyramid poster or use the Health textbook as a class reference for discussion. Tell students the object of a food pyramid is to show the guidelines of what foods are healthy.
    • Have students compare using a Venn-diagram (one of your own or use template in Inspiration software) healthy foods to the foods that were eaten in Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs. Ask:
      • Which one is the better example of how we should eat? Why?
      • What is the story pyramid lacking that is essential to a good diet?
      • When the townspeople traveled to the other town, do you think that they will eat better foods, or will continue to eat the same things that fell from their sky? Why or Why not?
13. Writing Activity Prompt: Reread the part of the book where people carried cutlery and dinnerware whenever they went out. Have students write about an imaginary town where odd things rain from the sky. See the Writing Prompt. Teach-nology has a sample writing rubric you may wish to use for evaluation.
14. Homework Activity: Plan your ideal weather for a day in the town of Chewandswallow and make a forecast for a meal. Write as if you are a professional weather forecaster. You might want to watch the news for the weather report on television to get some ideas for your writing. Example:

Weather Forecast For October 15, 2002 by Meteorologist BJ Larson

Today we will be seeing some strong weather systems from the South bringing us a 90% chance of Fried Chicken and okra. Expect some accumulation of the okra. The high should be around 55 degrees with a low of 15 degrees.

You may wish to use this homework rubric from Teach-nology.

15. Closure questions:
    • Could it ever rain meatballs? How about pancakes?
    • Is this story fiction or non-fiction? Is it fact or opinion?
    • What is the theme of the story?
    • Why do we do story-mapping?
    • What foods do you need to eat every day?
    • Would you want your friends to read this book? Why or Why not?

Assessment

• Inspiration Software Template for the story web or your own story web from a reading textbook.
• Teacher observation of the water cycle Game.
• Writing rubric for the prompt
• Homework rubric

Supplemental information

Teacher should have experience with Inspiration software. If you don’t have this software use the story-web chart that comes with all reading textbooks such as Scott Foresman or draw your own story web.

Critical vocabulary

Weather Words

Comments

I love doing read-alouds in my classroom and then being able to create a lesson plan from the read-aloud to incorporate several different subjects.