I don't know about the rest of you, but I loved Magic School Bus when I was a kid. Seriously, loved it. Now that Adventure Boy O is getting older, I have enjoyed sharing my love of science with him. One of the Magic School Bus books we have has a few science experiments that O has been wanting to try. So, one rainy day we decided to make rain in the kitchen, courtesy of Magic School Bus.
This experiment is super simple to set up and really helped my 4 year old understand part of the water cycle. Even now, more than a week later, he is talking about warm water vapor rising and cooling off until rain forms and falls down. Not bad for a four year old!
Materials Needed:
We found that the rain fell more readily when we tilted the pot to the side a bit, giving a nice edge for the droplets to slide off of. We counted how long it took for the first drop to fall, and we only counted to 45 or so before the first drops of rain started falling.
Once the Boys tired of watching the rain fall, we drew pictures of what we saw. Adventure Boy E was only interested in coloring the picture I drew, but Adventure Boy O actually did a great job of drawing what happened. His drawing also includes a picture of a flower that the water is holding up... so, you know, he's four!
STEAM Breakdown:
Science - The water cycle; warm water vapor rises from the Earth, cooling and condensing as it rises until it reaches the dew point and falls back to Earth.
Technology
Engineering
Art - Drawing what happened to describe the water cycle diagrammatically.
Math - Counting how long it took for the first drop of "rain" to fall.
This experiment is super simple to set up and really helped my 4 year old understand part of the water cycle. Even now, more than a week later, he is talking about warm water vapor rising and cooling off until rain forms and falls down. Not bad for a four year old!
Materials Needed:
- Pot with long handle
- Ice
- Water kettle
- Water
- Large pan (to catch the "rain")
- Stove (to heat water on)
- Fill water kettle with water, place on stove and start heating
- Fill pot with ice
- Place large pan near stove
- Once water is boiling and a nice amount of steam is coming out of the kettle, hold the ice-filled pot in the steam and above the large pan.
- Watch as the steam (water vapor) cools and condenses on the outside of the pot. Soon droplets will form and rain will fall!
We found that the rain fell more readily when we tilted the pot to the side a bit, giving a nice edge for the droplets to slide off of. We counted how long it took for the first drop to fall, and we only counted to 45 or so before the first drops of rain started falling.
Once the Boys tired of watching the rain fall, we drew pictures of what we saw. Adventure Boy E was only interested in coloring the picture I drew, but Adventure Boy O actually did a great job of drawing what happened. His drawing also includes a picture of a flower that the water is holding up... so, you know, he's four!
STEAM Breakdown:
Science - The water cycle; warm water vapor rises from the Earth, cooling and condensing as it rises until it reaches the dew point and falls back to Earth.
Technology
Engineering
Art - Drawing what happened to describe the water cycle diagrammatically.
Math - Counting how long it took for the first drop of "rain" to fall.
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