Evaporation,           (Push palms up toward the ceiling.)
Condensation,       (Bring palms together over your head.)
Precipitation all around,        (Wiggle fingers as you bring your palms down.)
Accumulation,                         (Sweep arms together as if gathering up something.)
Evaporation,           (Push palms up toward the ceiling.)
The water cycle goes round and round.            (Arms out by sides and make circles.)

Evaporation, evaporation, water goes up in the air,           (Palms up.)
Gets together and condenses and rain clouds do appear.        (Palms together over head.)

Then it rains, that’s precipitation, water falls to the ground.        (Wiggle fingers down.)
It accumulates in puddles and splashes all around.           (Sweep arms together.)

The water cycle starts all over when it evaporates again.
It condenses in the clouds, then precipitation will begin.

Evaporation, condensation, precipitation all around,
Accumulation, evaporation, the water cycle goes round and round.

Activities:

• You can make rain in your classroom with a large glass jar, a pie pan, hot water, and ice cubes. Fill the glass jar with hot water. Place the pie pan on the mouth of the jar and fill it with ice cubes. As the warm water vapor from the hot water rises and hits the cold pan, you will see drops of water fall like rain.

• Give each child a paper plate and demonstrate how to divide it into fourths. Have the children draw and label pictures of the water cycle in each section. Attach a paper arrow with a brad fastener in the center. Children can spin the arrow around as they sing the song.

 

• Make a rain gauge for your school from a glass jar. Mark inches on the side with a permanent marker and place the jar in a safe, open space. Choose a different child each day to be the “rain patrol” by checking the jar and recording the data.

• After you have collected several inches of rain water, place a coffee filter on top of another jar and pour the rain water through the coffee filter. Examine the filter for particles of dirt with a magnifying glass. What made the rain water dirty?

• Collect water samples from ponds, streams, or other bodies of water in your area in bottles and label them. Look at the samples with a magnifying glass. Would you like to drink that water? How do we get clean drinking water?

• Make weather graphs for the children and let them color in the weather each day for a month. Compare results at the end of the month.

• Do a sky watch where children sit and look at the sky. Give them blue paper and white chalk to draw the cloud formations they see. Learn the names of different types of clouds.

 

• Give each child a wet paper towel. Can they dry their towel? Let the children run around, put their towels in the sun, and experiment with other ways to get them dry. Draw conclusions about what worked best to dry the towel – sun, wind, or nothing?

• On a snowy day catch snowflakes on black construction paper and observe with a magnifying glass.