Continuing our week of the weather with a STEAM based science experiment your kids will love. Let’s make a cloud!

BOOK OF THE DAY AND STEAM ACTIVITY

Wacky Wednesday by Dr. Seuss

It’s Wednesday and on Wednesdays we… well, we don’t wear pink but today we did read Wacky Wednesday which seemed fitting. I’m probably an alien for this, but I’m really not the biggest Dr. Seuss fan, but it is a childhood right of passage to enter into the world of Seuss. Again, this book didn’t quite tie into our weekly theme of weather, but it was fun for Lane to play I Spy with all the wacky things.

Mason Jar Clouds

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This STEAM activity was the most fun! So fun we had to do both over and over again. You probably have most everything you need to make this work already in your home and it’s an entertaining visualization of cloud formation. It works in a similar way that real clouds do. There’s a water source, a heat source that doubles as atmospheric matter, and a cold air source. Here’s what you need and how to do it.

Supplies Needed

• quart size mason jar
• mason jar lid (you do not need the ring)
• birthday candle or match
• lighter
• warm water (not boiling)
• ice

First we took a minute to review the formation of clouds in the simplest way I could manage: water from lakes, oceans, even puddles, is warmed by the sun and turns into invisible gas and floats up into the sky where it’s colder. The invisible gas grabs onto the dust in the air and forms clouds. Then the cold air way up in the sky cools it down and it turns back into little drops of water. The clouds grow bigger and bigger until they get so heavy with drops of water that it rains.

To make this representation work fill your mason jar a quarter of the way with warm water.

Light your candle or match and hold it as far into the jar as you can so that it fills with smoke. The smoke acts as the dust particles in the air that the warmed water vapor grabs onto.

Drop your candle or match into the water and quickly place your lid on top.

Place ice cubes on top of the lid. This is the cold source that turns the vapor back into tiny water droplets and forms your cloud.

Watch as your cloud forms and after a minute or two remove the lid and watch your cloud float away.

Shaving Cream Rainclouds

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With this experiment we saw how the rain builds up in a cloud and gets too heavy for the cloud to support it. Here’s how to do it.

Supplies Needed

• mason jar or plastic cup
• water
• shaving cream
• blue food coloring
• syringe or water dropper

First, I would start by placing your cup on a large plate or something to catch spills.

Fill your cup almost full with water.

Spray a bunch of foam shaving cream onto the top. This is your cloud.

In a small dish mix some food coloring with a little water. This helps maximize the dye.

Using a water dropper or syringe, suck up the dye mixture and squirt it on top of your clouds.

Watch how the dye builds up and seeps through the shaving cream into the water like rain.

SING-A-LONG

Counting 1-10 by The Singing Walrus

HANDS ON LEARNING AND WORKSHEET

Letter B Line Tracing Worksheet

This is the second time I have given Lane a tracing sheet and he quickly understood the concept and has improved his drawing technique and is learning to hold a crayon with more control. Surprisingly, while both my husband and I are left handed, Lane has been going back and forth with left vs right handedness and seems to be favoring his right. This just blows my mind. In case you don’t know, it’s super rare for a child born to both left handed parents to be right hand dominant.

Click here for the tracing worksheet.

Next we pulled out the playdough again, one of Lane’s favorite activities. We used blue this time to refresh our memory of B is for blue. I asked him to roll chunks of playdough into little raindrops. After we had plenty formed, we counted them. Point to each raindrop and count up by one, this helps them understand that they are counting objects rather than reciting numbers in order.

I changed it up on him several times, taking a few raindrops away and then putting some back, asking him to count them each time. He’s so proud when he gets it right and I’m the happiest momma.

CRAFT CORNER

Making rain clouds in a mason jar may be Lane’s favorite part of the day, but this was mine.

Rather than always doing an art project for our craft corner activity, I thought it might be fun to throw in games or other projects. For this one we made a rain cloud lunch and it was as cute as it was delicious! I prepared the ingredients ahead of time and then helped Lane arrange them while asking him to identify shapes and count items.

Supplies Needed

• a slice of french toast
• powdered sugar in a shaker
• blueberries
• pineapple
• cheddar cheese
• round cracker

Cut the cheese into small triangles.

Cut the pineapple into small, long triangles.

Make the french toast.

Place your french toast cloud on a plate and dust with powdered sugar. This could be to make your cloud white or it could represent snow.

Arrange a few pieces of pineapple into a lightning bolt.

Add blueberry raindrops below the cloud.

Arrange your cheese and cracker into a sun.