{Homeschool} Cloud Unit

Sometimes (OK, most of the time) I don’t really have an agenda for homeschooling other subjects beyond math and English.  I let Ava take the lead and just work off of that.  However, I had a homeschool friend who was studying clouds with her 1st grader through K12 and I thought “that sounds good.”  So I decided we should study clouds too.

We read quite a bit from Abeka science textbooks I had, borrowed every juvenile non-fiction book on the subject from the library, created a water cycle chart on the wall, constantly pointed out what type of clouds were in the sky whenever we drove anywhere, and performed numerous fun experiments and crafts.  Overall, I think it was really successful!

One experiment we did helped us visualize water vapor.  First, pour boiling water into a mason jar then set a small metal bowl with ice and little water on top.  The inside of the jar will become gaseous and water droplets will form on the bottom of the bowl.

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Another day we played with one of Lily’s birthday presents – snow in a bottle.  It’s some sort of material that when you add water puffs up and becomes fluffy like snow.  The texture is fun and the girls had a good time playing with it.

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While the girls were playing with the “snow”, I busted out a few other experiments.  First, I added shaving cream to the top of a glass of water then dropped in a few drops of blue food coloring.  This illustrated how when clouds get heavy with water vapor, it rains.  Cool, huh?

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We also created a tornado in a jar.  Why? Because the girls wanted to see a tornado.

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Then we did some “cloud painting”: equal parts shaving cream and Elmer’s glue.  It turns into a puffy, 3-dimensional type of medium, creating the effect of clouds.  I gave the girls blue construction paper to paint on, so it seemed like the real deal.

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We finished off our cloud study a few days later with a much anticipated “cloud dinner”, as picked out by the girls: jicama, cauliflower and mashed potato clouds and pepper rainbows.  Dessert was sunshiny pineapple and marshmallows.

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