Making rain/ Learning about the water cycle

This is a great activity to try during a weather unit. You need 2 liter soda bottles (or another type of plastic bottle). Cut the bottle in half. Put about and inch of warm water in the bottom of the bottle. It helps to color it blue (for the ocean). Invert the top half into the bottom half (with the cap on). Fill the top with ice. After a few minutes clouds will form and droplets of "rain" will form on the inverted top. It's raining!

I had to update this post as we have done so much more around the water cycle and weather since the original project in 2010.  Weather has been added to our standards and our outdoor program affords us all kinds of opportunities to explore the power of water!  This year (2023) we had a week of extremely warm weather following an extremely snowy winter!  Our Mount Snowmungeous melted so quickly we actually had a sink hole on our campus!  The following is our water story.  One of our K teachers  taught us this song about the water cycle 

The Water Cycle

(Tune of O My Darlin Clementine)

Evaporation! (float fingers up from waist level like rising water vapor)

Condensation! (make cloud shapes with hands overhead)

Precipitation on my mind, (rain fingers down and point to head)

And it's called the water cycle (trace circle in the air in front of your body)

And it happens all the time.

This is another way to do the "making rain" experiment.  I like this one better because it takes less space, doesn't require ice and can be ongoing and used to collect data.

Mount Snowmungeous (a small section)

We visited the sink hole and talked about what we notice and what we wonder.

We used this simple video to learn more

A few days later these workers came and filled the hole and we were able to talk to them about what they were doing.  I think they got a kick out of teaching Kindergarten for a little bit!

Along with our learning about sink holes we also noticed the flowing water and did an inquiry about snow melt.  We followed the path of the water flowing from the snow melt, to the gutters and cracks in the parking lot pavement as it flowed into a drain that creates a small stream that flows into our school pond!

Checking the storm drains.  Are they full?

The water flows!  What can float?  What stops the water?  We reclaimed the work dam as a wall that blocks water.

Exploring the stream that flows to our school pond.  We are so lucky to have these resources on our school campus!  Rain boots are on our yearly supply list.