Water Cycle: part 1

Children, why does it mean when something goes around in a cycle?  Silence.  Outside at the playground there is a spinning merry-go-round that the children are quite familiar with.  And so I explained, when I have a lot of energy, I can spin the merry-go-round in circles while the children hang on a fetch a fun ride.   Now I have the children's attention.  The sun has SO much energy, that it can keep cycling water from liquid, to gas, and back to liquid again.  The water goes around and around in a cycle, just the spinning merry-go-round!  And with that Orin asked "Will the sun ever get tired or dizzy like you do?"   

We read the book "All the Water in the World" and here are some interesting comments and ideas they had:

Alexis - I have a hose in our garden to water the flowers!

Lysander - We have water in the pool so we can swim.

 I wonder if the water in the ocean stays there all the time?

Lysander & Jeffery - No.  Lysander - people take water from the ocean sometimes.

where else does the water go?

Jeffery & Lysander - to the sky (after the page that says about wet air swirl up)

 But how does water go up?

Lysander - Hummm... use a ladder!

Tai - Airplane!   Jeffery - hot air balloon!

Then we did a demonstration with a bucket of warm water and ice.  The children felt the warm water. I told them about how the water get heat by the sun and changes the water from liquid to air form. So,  the water can go up into the air because air  or gas is lighter than water. The children pretended to evaporate and fly up into the sky, as they flapped their wings. After the children touched the ice, I told them it's very cold high up in the sky and that some of the water becomes little ice cubes and clouds in the air. When the clouds get too heavy it rains!

Water cycle wheel, the arrow spins depicting water movement as it changes states

From the Water Cycle book, we created a board game for review before see the water cycle in action