by Nan Keltie

Created on: August 19, 2009   Last Updated: January 09, 2012

A bulletin board about clouds is fun to assemble and not difficult at all when you allow students to help. Working together on the design gives your class a lesson in cooperation and teaches them about clouds in the process.

To begin, cover approximately two-thirds of the board with blue paper, representing the sky. The bottom third of the board represents the earth's surface and can be decorated with shades of brown, tan and green. Perhaps it will picture patchwork fields, a neighborhood or a forest of trees and rolling hills.

Younger elementary students are able to learn the basic types of clouds and how they are formed. Upper elementary students can grasp more and will enjoy combining the basic cloud names that describe special formations, such as cirrostratus or cumulonimbus.

The teacher can decide how detailed to make the board after following all the links in this article. For a quick reference of cloud formations suited to older students, click here. Within the same site, follow other links to access more information and photos.

Once you have your bulletin board design in mind, clouds can be created from various materials - white tissue gift wrap, netting or tulle, Styrofoam peanuts, white Kleenex-type tissues, cotton balls or - if you prefer - simple cutouts from poster paper.

The shape of each depends on the type of cloud you are designing. Cirrus clouds are wispy and feathery and will be higher on the board. Stratus clouds look like they are layered and are usually midways down or lower. Cumulus clouds are puffy cotton candy-looking clouds that should be placed midway up the board. They can also be built up to the highest level, as real cumulus clouds sometimes reach 45,000 feet or more!

Other combinations of cloud forms can be found on the sites mentioned above and placed accordingly. Make trivia cards from index-size cards and place them near the clouds they describe. Along with the study of clouds, you may wish to discuss how they are formed as part of the water cycle. For a helpful handout sheet that depicts this cycle, click here.

There are also lesson plans about clouds on the web. Introduce a fun, new word to your students - nephelococcygia! It simply means "cloud watching". The site is based on a 3-5 day study of clouds and includes books to read, how to graph cloud formations, etc. Though the lessons are based on second-grade studies, any teacher can glean from the information found here.

Upper elementary teachers may wish to have their students review what they learn about clouds. The following activity sheets about clouds are used for reading-comprehension and include a question-and-answer sheet. You can access these teacher helps at this link.

By involving students with the bulletin board design, they are more likely to be excited about studying clouds. Have some of them carefully crumple tissue paper for clouds, or glue Styrofoam peanuts or cotton balls to cloud-shaped poster board. Others may wish to help design the ground-level section of the board in tans, browns and greens that make up patchwork fields, trees, yards, or rolling hills.

However simple or detailed your board ends up, your students will learn to enjoy dabbling in nephelococcygia - cloud-watching!

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