Design a Cloud Chart
suggested grade levels: 3- 6
view Idaho achievement standards for this lesson

Materials:

Large sheet of tagboard	Blue paint
Black paint	Roll of cotton batting
Felt pen or crayon	Rubber cement
Black construction paper

Procedure:
Use the cloud imaging section of the Digital Atlas of Idaho. To get there: Click on Atlas Home, Climatology, then on Cloud Imaging. Scroll down so you can click on the links to see pictures of the clouds, use these pictures as a model for your class when making their clouds.

Follow this guide:

High clouds: (20,000 feet)    Cirrus    Cirrocumulus    Cirrostratus	Low clouds: (below 6500 feet)    Stratocumulus    Stratus    Nimbostratus
Middle clouds: (6,500 - 20,000 feet)    Altocumulus    Altostratus	Clouds with a lot of vertical development:    Cumulus    Cumulonimbus

Paint the tagboard blue so that it looks like the sky. Draw an altitude scale in feet at one side of the chart. Cut from black construction paper silhouettes or shapes of well-known mountains and the tallest buildings. Paste these silhouettes on the bottom of the chart, making sure that they extend to the proper heights.

Unroll a fresh pack of cotton. Cut the different shapes or forms of clouds out of the cotton. Add a little black paint on the thunderclouds. Use rubber cement to attach the clouds to the chart at their proper altitudes or heights. Label the clouds either by printing the name of each cloud directly under it or on a slip of paper that is glued over the cloud. It is easy to identify clouds using the chart.

Handouts/Activity links:
These are links to access the handouts and printable materials.
Cloud Imaging

Related Lesson Topics:
Climatology: Climatology