Cloud Fun!

I have the wonderful opportunity to have students from the University of Illinois placed in my classroom. They are usually juniors doing their practicum and I love having them! This semester I have TWO Elementary Education majors with me. They are required to spend 30 hours in my classroom and teach 2 lessons. Katherine taught a really cute writing lesson on "Where the Wild Things Are". She used Deanna Jump's lesson and it worked in perfectly with our African Jungle Animal unit. I will edit this post tomorrow and add pictures of the kid's work.

Mallory did a science lesson on clouds. We found this activity on Pinterest and if you get a chance to try it, you should! If this is your idea, please let me know and I will credit you! It takes little preparation, but the kids are fascinated with what happens!

  First read Tomie dePaola's "The Cloud Book." Then give children this sheet (or click on the picture below) and cotton balls. They stretch the cotton balls to look like each type of cloud. The Nimbus cloud (thunder cloud) could be drawn with crayon or marker OR the cotton ball could be colored with black marker. We copied the worksheet onto blue paper.

Give each child a clear plastic cup filled with water. Squirt shaving cream on the top of the water. Dilute some blue food coloring in water and put into cups. We had 2 children share a cup of diluted blue water. Each child has their own cup of shaving cream and water, though,  and an eye dropper. Discuss how clouds hold in water until they get so heavy, the water has to fall.

The children put drops of water onto the shaving cream and watch and watch until finally it begins to rain!  How cool is that!




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