Water Water Water Cycle, Ya'll!

I'm guilty. I'm guilty of picking two favorite subjects in science. Yes! Lock me up... I'm guilty of loving our weather and outer space unit a little too much.  Right now, we are studying weather and specifically the water cycle. Last year, we made water cycles in ziplock baggies (you can read about our water cycle excitement from last year here). This year, we decided to GO BIG with our own water cycle creations. Thanks to the wonderful Corkboard Connection blogs by Laura here... I found her idea to create a water cycle in a rotisserie container. So, that's exactly what we did!

Thanks to a generous donation of containers from Hyvee, small groups created their very own greenhouse. I told them the supplies to gather (rock, soil, foil for a pond, and water) and we headed outside. Luckily for us, November 1st (today) was an unseasonably warm day. We were outside enjoying the sunshine all day long. 

C'mon.. do something!

Waiting on Mother Nature to Work Magic!

Later in the afternoon, after our beautiful energy source (ahem...the sun) worked its magic, we checked out our little cycles. Honestly, you would have thought that I gave some of my kids a huge candy bar wrapped with gold paper because they FLIPPED OUT.  They were pumped to see condensation forming and vapor surrounding their container. It was incredible! I loved seeing them so excited about our project. 

We brought our cycles in overnight and a few students decided to label them for tomorrow. I was pleasantly surprised, and equally delighted, to see they had labeled them as their "cloud" group.  Let me back up... during each unit I change the name of each pod to something I want them to memorize. Read about it here. Right now, all of my groups are different types of clouds. Here you can see a picture of the Cumulus' water cycle. 

Ahhh... Science! It's a beautiful thing. Tomorrow, my students are headed on an incredible journey! Their fate as a water molecule is in the hands of the dice. Happy Friday!