Water

When I learned that our local museum would have an exhibit on the water cycle, I pulled out all of the material I had on the subject (which turned out to not be as much as I'd like, but oh, well). We wanted to study up before we went to see the exhibit! I also decided to teach Evie about floating vs. sinking. Water is always fascinating for toddlers, and they also love dropping objects into water. So there's a set-up for one experiment already.


Books

• Follow the Water from Brook to Ocean by Arthur Dorros
• Floating and Sinking by Amy S. Hansen
• The Magic School Bus at the Waterworks by Joanna Cole
• A Drop of Water: A Book of Science and Wonder by Walter Wick
• El Tiempo/ Weather by Lee Aucoin

 Activities

• 
  Pretend Play: Brook. This activity was inspired by the book Follow the Water from Brook to Ocean. Also, I had a lot of recycling that I hadn't rounded up yet, and decided to have some fun with it. For some reason, Amazon uses gigantic rolls of brown paper as packing material. When smoothed out, it is quite wide and long and great to throw on the floor for coloring projects. In this case, we grabbed some crayons and drew on squiggly water lines. Then I fashioned a "cave" out of a large box, and decided that our brook would come from a spring flowing out of the cave. We went inside the cave together and drew "cave paintings" on the ceiling. Experiment: Float or Sink? We actually did this experiment twice, because it is so easy to set up anywhere. For the first time, I grabbed a large bowl and filled it with water. Then I set out a piece of paper with a line drawn down the middle, and a big F on one side (for float) and an S on the other (for sink). I brought out a tray of random objects, and then let Evie drop them in the water, and sort them on the paper. We read the book Floating and Sinking a few times. We talked about density, and how air is lighter than water. This experiment was repeated in the bathtub. I had her guess whether an object would float or sink before she dropped it into the water. 
• Experiment: Water Cycle Bag. I remember doing this experiment in school. Use a permanent marker to draw the water cycle on the Ziploc bag, with arrows for condensation, precipitation, and evaporation. Then add some water to the bag (we also added a drop of blue food coloring), and seal shut. Tape to a window and wait. 
• Trip: Public Museum. Field trip!