Download Lesson: Clouds and Precipitation

Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin
Lesson: Clouds and Precipitation
Date: September 2011
Introduction
Goals:
Snowflake Bentley photographed snowflakes. In this lesson we are going to look at weather,
precipitation, cloud formation and cloud types to see where snow comes from.
Materials Needed:
1. Scissors
2. Print off water drops on paper, enough for all
the students
3. Crayons (optional depending on which water
drops you use)
4. Construction paper: 2” diameter circles cut
out
5. Blank 3x5 cards or white cardstock (clouds)
6. One metal spoon per child
7. Shaving cream
8. Cloud Images and Activities Document
Read Aloud: (Optional)
Clouds by Anne Rockwell
It got a 5 star rating on Amazon (8 out of 8). It goes into the detail about the different kinds of
clouds which may be too detailed for this age and time limit, but there is a great picture
illustrating where the clouds sit in the sky. It can be found at the FCPL.
Clouds
What is a cloud?
ASK: What are clouds made of? Have the children share their ideas. Answer: Water


A cloud is a large collection of very tiny droplets of water or ice crystals.
There is water in the air all around us.
o Think of those thick, heavy warm summer days. That’s when the air is
especially packed with water and you’ll hear your parents say, “Wow, it
really humid out.” Though we cannot see the water, we can feel it all
round us.
o Have you ever walked in the bathroom when someone else was taking a
shower? Can you remember the bathroom being steamy - warm and
harder to breathe? That’s that extra water in the air. When water is warm
like that, the water becomes a vapor and spreads out into the air in tiny
molecules.
Where Do Clouds Come From?
Clouds are formed when water evaporating from oceans, lakes and ponds rises up into the sky.
The water evaporating is called water vapor. Water vapor is made up of tiny water droplets that
are so small and light that they can float in the air. But as water vapor rises, it touches the cooler
air high in the sky, so it gets cool. When the water vapor cools it condenses (which means it
collects together and becomes denser) and connects itself to dust particles, forming a water
droplet. When billions of these droplets come together they become a visible cloud.
Warm air rises illustration: Think of steam coming off the stove, it always goes up. Or think of
hot air balloons. In hot air balloons, you heat the air in the balloon and the balloon rises, but if
the air cools, it sinks back down to earth. [1]
Why are Clouds Helpful
ASK: What do clouds do for us?


They give us rain. Clouds are important to everything that lives and grows here.
They bring rain that all plants and animals need.
o One raindrop is made up of about one million cloud droplets
Clouds have a large effect on the heating and cooling of the earth. Clouds can
block sunlight or trap heat from escaping the atmosphere.
o The clouds trap in heat to keep the earth warm in the night
o Shields the earth from the hot sun during the day [2]
Activity #1: Spoon Weather
Materials Needed:
1. A can of shaving cream
2. 1 metal spoon per child
Instructions:
1. Have children cup their hands around their mouths and exhale into their hands. Repeat
several times. Help children to notice that their breath feels warm and moist.
2. Pass out the spoons. Let’s pretend this shaving cream is water. Put the shaving cream on
each spoon.
3. Have the children notice that the spoons feel cool.
4. Hold the back of a spoon close to your mouth and exhale. Have the children repeat this
procedure. What do they see? (Notice the condensation that forms on the back of the
spoon)
5. Help children understand that the condensation or “tiny clouds” on their spoons are like
the clouds in the sky, formed when warm, moist air and cool air come together. [3]
Rain and Snow
RAIN: What makes a cloud become rain?
When the water vapor collects into droplets and the air cools around it, the cold air causes the
warm moist droplets to fall. Why? Because cold air does not hold water vapor well, it triggers
the formation of water droplets (remember that original water vapor shrinking and clinging onto
dust to make droplets). The cold air cannot hold the droplets and they fall as rain. You know how
if you collect steam onto a glass you have water droplets and then if I collect those water droplets
and freeze them, they become ice and are heavier than the tiny particles of steam. The droplets
made by the cold air are heavier than vapor/steam so they fall from the sky.[4]
SNOW: How do we get snow?
Snow forms if the air in a cloud is below freezing. The water vapour then turns to ice instead of
rain and the tiny ice crystals stick together until they form snowflakes. When they get heavy
enough to fall, they drop out of the clouds. At this point though, we still don’t know whether
they will end up as rain or remain as snow. This depends on the temperature of the air they travel
through on the way down to the ground. If it gets warmer, they turn into rain, but if the air stays
close to freezing all the way down, then the snowflakes will make it without melting and so fall
as snow.[5]
Activity #2: Becoming Rain
Materials Needed:
1. Scissors
2. Print off water drops on paper enough for all the students (either the blue ones or the
open one). See link in Materials Needed.
3. Crayons
4. Construction paper: 2” diameter circles cut out
Instructions:
1. Have 2/3 of the students cut out a water drop and 1/3 cut out a circle in any one color of
construction paper (but not blue). If using the open water drop, they can color it.
2. Have all the students hold their shape above their head and walk around the room,
separate from one another.
3. Then have a student or team teacher come around with cold air (see coloring page) and
herd the dust particle and water drop children together.
4. The water drop children need to find and link up with a dust particle child. (2 water
students/1particle student)
5. Note for the students: When they are all together they are a visible cloud!!
6. Then have the student or teacher comes around again with cold air. Ask: “You are
feeling really heavy now aren’t you?”
7. Have all the children (water and dust) fall to the ground in rain
8. Note for the students that the cold air makes the water so heavy that it falls from the sky
in the form of rain – or snow.
Different kinds of Clouds:
cloud classification[6]
Clouds are defined by where they are in the sky: High, Middle, Low and Vertical. The first part
of their name indicates where they are in the sky. The second part tells what shape it is.
 Height: Cirrus-High, Alto-Mid, Stratus and Cumulus-Low
 Shapes: Stratus-blanket, cumulus-heap, nimbus-rain
Kinds of Clouds

Cirrus, High-Level clouds: Found high in the sky, thin, wispy or curly. They can indicate
a change in weather that is coming or be left after a thunderstorm. These are the ones that
get really colorful at sunset.

Stratus, Mid and Low-Level clouds. Stratus means blanket. They are uniform, flat, thick
to thin layered clouds with ill-defined edges because they are spread out like a blanket.
These bring us our cloudy days and are filled with water droplets.

Cumulus, Mid and Low-Level clouds. Puffy and piled up in heaps. These are probably
our most familiar clouds. We play games with these clouds to find the dog or bunny
because they have clearly defined edges.

Nimbus, Low-Level Clouds: Dark flat low lying clouds that produce rain. This cloud
combines with other cloud types to produce rain. Nimbostratus produces rain that just
comes down. Cumulonimbus are the dark, dense, big clouds that give us clashing
thunderstorms. [7]

Fog: Low lying stratus clouds on the surface of the earth. Did you know fog is a cloud
down low? [8] [9]
Bring out visual aids (pictures of clouds) to show examples of the clouds. Use the picture above
to explain where different clouds sit in the sky. There is another picture inside the book "Clouds"
by Anne Rockwell to illustrate clouds in the sky.
Lapbook
1.
2.
3.
4.
Bring cardstock or blank 3x5 cards and have the students cut out their own cloud.
Write on the cloud what type it is: Cirrus, Stratus, Cumulus or Nimbus
Glue the cloud and the blue/or colored water drop onto their lapbook.
Suggest that the blue drop can be oriented to come down from the cloud.