Learn all about clouds.
This is a great lesson on clouds mainly suitable for children from preschool through second grade. Check at the end of the article for places to go to learn more for older children.
Say: We see clouds almost every day. Some days we watch clouds for weather. What kind of weather comes out of clouds? (rain, snow, sleet, hail). Sometimes we watch the clouds move across the sky or make interesting shapes. What makes the clouds move?(wind, moisture)
The Water Cycle: How do clouds form, and what happens to them? We call this the Water Cycle. There are three part of the water cycle:
- Evaporation - Water evaporates, or changes from liquid (water) to gas (water vapor). The sun's heat turns the water into vapor, which rises high into the air. Try This - On a sunny, warm day, fill a paper cup with water. With a permanent marker or piece of tape, mark how high the water is on the cup. Place it outside. Check on it and record what happens to the water in the cup.
- Condensation - When the warm water vapor rises high into the air, it cools down (it is cold high up in the air). As it cools, it changes back into liquid - tiny drops of water. The little drops cling together and form clouds.
- Precipitation - When there is enough drops of water, they drop out of the cloud as rain or snow or another form of precipitation. These fall, and the whole cycle starts all over again!
Make It - Give each child three index cards. Have them label each one "evaporation", "condensation", and "precipitation". Then, have them draw pictures to describe what happens in each stage. Older children can write a short description on the back on each card.
Show It - This is a great experiment, but must be done by an adult, and caution must be used. Fill a small pot with water and bring it to a boil. As it boils, let children stand at a safe distance so they can see. First hold a large metal spoon over the steam. Soon, drops of condensation will form. Eventually, they will start dripping off the spoon back into the pot. This is the water cycle! Can also be done with a cotton ball instead of a spoon. The cotton ball is absorbent, like our atmosphere, unlike the spoon.
Clouds: These are four types of clouds we might see in the sky:
- Cirrus - Latin for "curl of hair". High, wispy, icy clouds. Usually very thin.
- Cumulus - Latin for "heap". Clouds that are puffy and fluffy looking.
- Stratus - Latin for "curl of hair".Hanging low in the sky in layers.
- Cumulonimbus - Nimbus is Latin for "rain". Large, towering gray clouds. Thunderstorm clouds.
Make it - Give several cotton balls to each child and a sheet of construction paper. Divide paper into 4 halves. Label each one with the name of a cloud type. Use the cotton balls to make "clouds" of each type and glue onto paper. (see end of article for websites where you can find good pictures of each type of cloud).
Show It - Keep a cloud journal for a week. Observe the sky for clouds and record which types are seen. Record the weather for the each day observed, as well, and see if there are any connections to be made.
This is a basic lesson. If you look around, you may find that many different sites have slightly different ways of explaining classifying clouds.
These are great sites to develop this lesson further for older children, or to learn more yourself.
- Clouds, by Carl Wokniak - a really great site with excellent pictures and descriptions of cloud types
- WW2010, by the University of Illinois - Great pictures and descriptions of clouds. Also where the Latin translations for cloud types in this article come from.
- NASA's Space Place - a wonderful science site for kids
