CLEVELAND — Just before the stay-at-home order, we were all in the car when my 4-year-old screamed from the back seat.
“MOM!!”
I nearly veered off the road.
“Look at that cloud!!! It looks like a UNICORN!” she yelled pointing out the window, “How are clouds made?”
I did my best to explain how clouds form in the sky, but I was using big words and driving at the same time so I’m not sure she caught on.
Then I saw a simple project that we could do at home that shows them the weather cycle. And all I needed was a Ziploc-style bag and water! (and blue food coloring if you want your water to be really blue)
We used a storage size plastic bag and I let my daughter draw a sun and a cloud on the top of the bag.
Then we put a few drops of blue food coloring into a glass of water. I let her pour the water into the bag and we zipped it up!
Next, find a sunny window. We picked the one in our sunroom because it gets warm during the day and cold at night. The temperature change will help the “weather cycle” work.
After a couple hours of the bag hanging on the window, we noticed it was more cloudy and the bag puffed up, showing the kids that the water was evaporating and turning into a gas.
Then, the next morning, after a cold night, there were water droplets all over the side of the bag, showing them that as the vapor cooled, it turned back into a liquid.
My kids loved running in and out of the room to see what the “cloud” was doing. Unfortunately, we didn’t get any unicorns.
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