Observing Wind!

After waiting several days, we were finally able to get out and make some observations about the wind today!  We wanted the children to experience the wind and to try to observe the direction of the wind.  We held salt in our hands to see if it would blow in the wind, felt wind in our hair and used our homemade weathervane.  We used all of these things to try to help us to determine the direction of the wind.  We also introduced the four cardinal directions (North, South, East and West) while trying to determine wind direction.  We placed our weathervanes in the center of the sidewalk and had 4 of our friends hold the direction signs in the appropriate places.  We determined that the wind seemed to be blowing east, but our weathervanes were pointing west!  We had many more questions that we will continue to explore over the next few weeks.  Below is a video of our weathervane in action and some other shots from our wind photographers Charlie S, Sevana and Zach.

 

 

 

Air All Around Us!

Today the students investigated some of the properties of air.  They engaged in a demonstration of how air fills an "empty" space in bags and even inside objects such as sponges, clay pot pieces and rocks.  We started by dropping different objects into a bucket of water to observe what would happen.  We noticed that tiny bubbles began to escape from several of the items and move towards the surface of the water.  The kids loved watching this happen.  We talked about where they thought the bubbles might be coming from.  We then experimented with air inside of plastic bags.  Below are some pictures of our air explorations taken by our photographers Ally S., Carter and Michael J.

 

 

 

 

 

Frost!

Today the children created frost and observed the conditions that were necessary for frost formation.  They learned that frost, like dew, is water that comes out of the air.  While exploring, we learned that frost forms as tiny ice crystals rather than as water droplets. Several of our tin cans only had condensation on the outside, but we did get one really great example of frost!  Our class photographer, Caroline, captured the pictures below.

 

 



We also took some pictures of our frost under the digital microscope.  Here is what we found.

 

 

 

Evaporation and Condensation!

Water Goes Into the Air....Water Comes Out of the Air

The children engaged in a lesson on evaporation during this past week.  They used a paintbrush to "paint" a water picture on construction paper.  We then used our science skills of observing and wondering!  The children enjoyed watching the water disappear from the paper.  We had many thoughts and "wonders" about where the water went.  Some thought the water may have gone inside the paper so we ripped up the paper to see.  We found no water.  Still others predicted that the water went into the air and turned to water vapor.
The following day, we experimented with water coming out of the air.  We used a "hot pot" and a tray with ice on top to see what would happen.  We carefully observed the steam coming up from the hot pot and hitting the bottom of the ice tray.  The kids started to notice that something was forming on the bottom of the pan.  It then began to rain!!  They loved this!  We wondered about where the water came from and our ideas ranged from "It came through the pan" to "It is the water vapor, like how clouds form!"  We even had our photographer, Eric, capture some pictures of our findings.

 

Clouds!

The children spent time earlier this week learning about how clouds are made!  We charted what the children already know about clouds.  Here is what they know:

* There are different types of clouds: nimbus, stratus, cumulus and cirrus
* Different clouds bring different kinds of weather.
* If there are a lot of clouds, it can be darker outside.
* Nimbus clouds make rain.
* Thunderclouds can bring storms.
* Evaporation helps to make clouds.
* Water vapor goes up into the sky, which helps to form clouds.

Then, after looking at different cloud types, the children made models of the four basic cloud types: cumulus, stratus, cirrus and thunderclouds.

Our scientist were incredibly engaged during our simple walk outside and eager to look up in the sky to try to identify what types of clouds were present!  Our cloud photographers (Molly, Keira, Michael S and Grace) took these wonderful pictures of the clouds we spotted.  The kids observed the clouds in the sky and determined that they were cumulus clouds!  In recent days, several of the students have come up to me at recess to tell me what types of clouds are in the sky.  I think we have some future meteorologists in the group!

 

 

 

Measuring the Rain!

Last week, the kids had a great time learning how meteorologists measure rainfall.  We learned that the average yearly rainfall in Arlington Heights is about 90 cm per year!  The children loved seeing our classroom rain gauge for the first time.  We took it outside, sprayed water to see how the drops collect in the gauge and filled it to practice reading the measurements.  We then found the perfect spot in our courtyard and put the rain gauge in place.  We have checked on it frequently!  Today when we checked there was a quarter of a cm of rain.

 

Water, Water Everywhere!

For the past several days, we have been learning about water and how it affects our weather.  The students experimented with water freezing and melting.  We placed cups of water, with a small object placed inside, in the freeze to see what would happen.

The following day we took out our cups and the water had turned to ice!  The kids were so excited to go get their cups!  We explored our ice cube and experimented with different things to see if we could figure out a way to get it to melt quicker.  What a mess we made and what fun we had!

 

 

 

 

 

Here are some of our conclusions about melting ice:

* Ice will melt faster if you hold it in your warm hands.
* Salt helps ice to melt faster.
* Sand did not help the ice melt faster.
* Using a knife or paperclip to scrap at the ice helped it to melt faster.
* Wrapping the ice in a paper towel did not help it to melt faster.
* The ice cube turned into a puddle as it started to melt.
* Water was dripping everywhere.
* Water in weather could be rain, snow, ice or hail.



We finally got our time lapse video of the melting ice!  The third time was a charm.  The children watched it to see how the ice slowly melted!  They instantly noticed that the temperature went up on the thermometer.  Check out our time lapse below: