The Water Cycle

The kids now know all about the water cycle!

It was a busy first day of our 'weather theme'.  There's so much fun learning and vocabulary to pack in to this week!  We began by learning all about the water cycle.

First, we brainstormed words associated with weather.  The kids came up with lots of terms:  rain, snow, hail, cloudy and sunny, and the four seasons.  To introduce the topic, we used the book Rain byRobert Kalan.  This very simple text helped begin the children's understanding that the clouds start light and white (cute puffy clouds, we called them), then become bigger, darker, and heavier until.....it RAINS!  The children were already beginning to 'read' this text- by the end of the week they will be able to read it all!

After the story, we discussed the water cycle.  I told them a 'story' of three basic concepts:

1. The sun warms the water (in puddles, lakes, ponds, ocean, etc.)
2. The water turns invisible and goes into the air, called evaporation.  The water collects into clouds.
3. As the clouds get bigger and heavier with more water, rain falls down.

Have your child tell you the story!  Next, we wanted to see this magical 'evaopration' in action!  We headed to the kitchen where we boiled water and watched the 'steam' evaporate.  There were all kinds of questions about how the steam will get outside to the other clouds, where does it go, how will it make rain, what is smoke, can I touch it......something about cigars......your kids have a lot of questions!  I even heard that this was the best steam experiment ever!  Indeed it was!

Here's our evaporation experiment!

 During lunch, we watched Ms. Fizzle bring the water cycle to life in this video: