Will it Be a White Christmas in Your Town? Teaching With Technology in the Elementary School

If you live in an area of the world thathow the weather for the month of November
sometimes has snow at Christmas you knowand December compares to previous years. Has
about the annual anticipation of whether or not itit been colder or warmer? Why could that be?
will be a white Christmas.Reading these maps is also a great time to
Will it be a white Christmas in your town? Are theintroduce the concepts of Lake Effect Snow that
odds strong or weak? Are there places in theis especially prominent around the Great Lakes.
United States that are guaranteed to have snowThere are maps online that show this data also
on Christmas?and explains the process of Lake Effect.
Your students can use the internet to read mapsCombine this activity with others to create a set
of historic data to decide what the chances areof literacy work stations or centers based around
for your area to see snow on Christmas.the holiday theme.
After looking at the historic data, use the internetUse the holiday season as a disguise for finding
to find the local forecast for your particular area.information, reading maps, analyzing historic data
Students may have different information toversus current conditions, and sharing with
analyze based on where they stay or travel toclassmates. This is the kind of information that
for the holiday.kids will go home and share with their families.
Another aspect of the weather to compare is