Tornados and Rain Clouds Weather Science
Saturday Science Blog Hop
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Preschool Weather Science Activities Indoors!
Why Science?
My son loves our science experiments. He is a high energy, sensory seeking little boy who enjoys highly stimulating activities. Science experiments provide just the right amount of everything for him to become fully engage and interactive with what we are doing together. So far we have done a lot of fun things together including fizzing eyeballs and pumpkin-canos!
Weather Science for Preschool
We have been enjoying two books lately. Otis and the Tornado by Loren Long and The Berenstain Bears’ Big Book of Science and Nature by Stan & Jan Berenstain were both birthday presents. Both books talk about tornados and I thought it would be neat to show Liam how a tornado is formed and what happens when there is a tornado. The Berenstain Bears keep it simple by calling it a big wind that lifts objects off the ground as opposed to lesser strength winds like breezes. I am pretty sure talking about a vortex is out of the question. Also since we were talking about things that happen during a storm, I thought about showing Liam how it rains from clouds.
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Tornado Experiment
Materials
2 one liter bottles (we drank a lot of seltzer today), metal washer that fits closely to the top of the bottle, duct tape (we used flex fix tape), glitter (cause it’s cool and we called it debris) and some of our bats from a package of table scatter. Multiple hands too!
Set Up
Fill one bottle almost to the top and add the glitter and bats. Place washer on top and then put the second bottle’s opening on top of the washer. Seal tightly with the tape (several layers) so it doesn’t bend.
Action
Turn the bottle over so the water is on the top and get a good swirling motion going to create the vortex. A vortex is created when the rotating liquids form a spiral around a center line and the liquid falls through thanks to gravity forming a continuous vortex. Maybe you don’t need to go into many details or maybe you do! However, you should see the tornado start to form and the hole in the middle! Pretty cool. You can do it over and over again and point out little facts each time. This will get repeated many times!
Rain Cloud Experiment
How does it rain? Basically the clouds get heavy with big droplets of water and then they fall to Earth and it is called rain. Preschool version with a child to excited to see shaving cream to care. Yes simply rain falls out of clouds works sometimes.
Materials & Set Up
We used a large vase with a good sized opening. I thought it would be fun to drop pumpkins in so that it looked like it was raining on a pumpkin patch. Then we squirted a big, puffy blob of shaving cream on top to represent a full cloud.
Action
Liam squirted the food coloring on top an we watched it eventually fall through our shaving cream cloud to make rain. The more he added the quicker it fell. Good for showing the difference between a drizzle and a down pour. We used our whole bottle of blue food coloring until we had a real storm brewing over our pumpkins. The we watched and examined the vase!
Extend The Fun
We made shaving cream clouds. I set out some blue construction paper and let him make plops and glops on the paper and swirl it all around. This gave us an opportunity to talk about what we had just done. He also did a bit of drawing with his finger in the clouds and even wrote his name.
Now it’s your turn!
We would love for you to grab a button and display it! Please follow your hosts in some way that you like too. Share a post or two of your fun, family friendly science activities and pin or share some others that you like. Visit all our great science experiments! Blog hops spread the love.
You might also enjoy!
Salt Water Density Sink or Float Experiment
Exploring Gravity Around The House
Solids, Liquids and Gasses
Check out the blog hop too for more ideas!
Angela @ Teaching Mama
Emma @ P is for Preschooler
Kristylee @ Moms Have Questions Too
Follow Sarah McClelland’s board Science Experiments for Kids on Pinterest.
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More great science activities to try!
[email protected] says
LOVE this idea for a blog hop! Thanks so much for coming up with this idea I linked up and am sharing on all social media! GREAT IDEA!!!
littlebins says
Thank you Tracey! We had so much fun with it. My son loves science! I appreciate all the sharing. Come share on my facebook page anytime!
Emma says
Weather can be hard to explain to preschoolers, but both these ideas give a great visual for learning about rain clouds and tornados. Awesome one, Sarah!
Missy says
Weather experiments are so much fun! Thank you for sharing your post, and for hosting the linky too!
littlebins says
Thank you!
Charity says
Neat experiments! Now following from http://scrappybaglady.blogspot.com/
Shaunna @ Fantastic Fun and Learning says
I love the photos you took of these experiments. They both look like so much fun. I’m featuring you today in a collection of weather experiments for kids. Thanks for linking up to Discover & Explore!
Penelope says
You could definitely see your skills in the article you write.
The world hopes for more passionate writers such as you who aren’t afraid to say
how they believe. All the time follow your heart.