Heather Wiles
Children’s Literature Assignment
1. Bauer, M.D. (2005). If frogs made weather. New York, NY: Holiday
House.
This book is a pattern book involving animals and weather. It
begins, “If frogs made weather, morning would sprinkle. Afternoon
would drip. Night would whisper.” The book continues with weasels,
robins, cats, flies, turtles, bats, hawks, geese, polar bears, and the boy in
the book making the weather. Science topics mentioned in this book are
precipitation, temperature, thunderstorms, wind, and seasons.
2. Non-Fiction Support Books
Sherman, J. (2004). Splish! Splash! A book about rain. Minneapolis, MN: Picture
Window Books.
Splish! Splash! is about rain and the water cycle. The water cycle is
explained in a way that young students can understand. This book makes it
clear that the water we use came from rain. Drought, hail, deserts, and rain
forests as well as water droplets and water vapor are brought up. A water cycle
experiment is included at the end of the book with common rain sayings and a
glossary.
Simon, S. (1993). Weather. Collins.
This book is similar to Simon’s book about the moon. He includes
high-quality photographs that are incredible. The text covers the effects of
the sun, wind patterns, temperature, clouds, and precipitation. All of these
topics are explored in detail with easy to understand terms and their
affects on our activities.
3. Science Standards for Kindergarten
Competency Goal 2: The learner will make observations and build an understanding of weather
concepts.
Objective 2.02 Identify different weather features including: precipitation, wind, temperature,
and cloud cover
Objective 2.03 Identify types of precipitation, changes in wind, force, direction, and sky
condition.
4. Other Content Standards
Language Arts
Competency Goal 2: The learner will develop and apply strategies and skills to comprehend text that is
read, heard, or viewed.
Objective 2.03
Competency Goal 3: The learner will make connections through the use of oral language, written
language, and media and technology.
Objective 3.01
Objective 3.02
Competency Goal 4: The learner will apply strategies and skills to create oral, written, and visual texts.
Objective 4.04
Mathematics
Competency Goal 1: The learner will recognize, model, and write whole numbers through 30.
Objective 1.01
5. Background Information
When water turns into a gas it is called water vapor. (Hot water in the jar changed to a gas
or evaporated. The gas is called water vapor.)
Clouds are made up of tiny water droplets. (When the vapor touched the cold pan, it
condensed and formed drops. The drops combined and fell once they were heavy enough.)
Water droplets combine until they are heavy enough to fall as rain.
Water vapor condenses on a cloud and forms drops. These drops grow by bumping into
each other.
Clouds have a similar process and are actually made up of tiny water drops. Water droplets
grow by bumping into one another.
• If the air cools, it can’t hold as much water vapor.
• When water condenses on the ground, it is called dew. The moisture comes out of the air
and condenses on the grassy surface. If the temperature is below freezing, the moisture will
be frost. Frost is not frozen dew; frost forms when the water vapor crystallizes into those
white ice crystals. (Brotak, E. (2004). Wild about weather: 50 wet, windy, & wonderful
activities. New York: Lark Books.)
• Fog is basically a cloud that is at the Earth’s surface. There are different types; radiation or
ground fog, frontal fog, and marine fog. Ground fog occurs most often in the early mornings
and burns off later in the morning. Frontal fog comes with a front, often a warm front and is
widespread. Marine fog develops over cold water. (Brotak, E. (2004). Wild about weather:
50 wet, windy, & wonderful activities. New York: Lark Books.)
• Steam coming off of a pot of water is not water vapor. The water vapor has already
condensed at this point.
• Clouds have classifications. There are low, middle, and high clouds.
• Clouds weigh millions of pounds. (Brotak, E. (2004). Wild about weather: 50 wet, windy, &
wonderful activities. New York: Lark Books.)
• When you see your breath outside on a cold day, the water vapor coming out of your
mouth is a cloud. Why? The water vapor condensed.
6. Science Activity
Materials:
Small aluminum pie pans
Ice cubes (enough to cover the bottom of the aluminum pie pan)
Large (1-quart) clear jar
Hot water (microwave 2 cups approximately 2 minutes; the water temperature will be
warmer than bath water)
Bauer, M.D. (2005). If frogs made weather. New York, NY: Holiday House.
Activity Procedure
1. Fill a small aluminum pie pan with ice cubes.
2. Add hot water to a clear jar until it is about two-thirds full.
3. Put the pan of ice cubes on the open top of the jar. Make
predictions.
4. Read If Frogs Made the Weather
5. After about 15 minutes from start of experiment (end of book),
look at the inside sides of the jar. What do you see?
6. Watch carefully for a few minutes. You may see drops of rain
from the bottom of the pan fall into the jar. Or you may see
drops of rain from the pan run down the side of the jar.
7. Carefully lift the pan of ice. What do you see on the bottom of
the pan?
8. How can you explain what you have seen? Where else have you
seen something like this? How is your experiment similar to the
way real rain is made?
*Activity from Gardner, R. (2008). Wild Science Projects About
Earth’s Weather. United States. Enslow Elementary, an imprint
of Enslow Publishers, Inc.
Explanation: Hot water in the jar changed to a gas or evaporated.
The gas is called water vapor. When the vapor touched the cold
pan, it condensed and formed drops. The drops combined and
fell once they were heavy enough. Clouds have a similar process
and are actually made up of tiny water drops. Water droplets grow by bumping into one
another.
7. Assessment
As the lesson progresses, observe student’s reactions to the story and the rain cloud.
Listen to the answers students have to the questions in number 7 of the science activity procedure.
Assess their observations of what happened as well as their reasoning for how this is similar to real
life.
Tips:
This lesson would be difficult to do alone with a class of 20 kindergarten students. I divided
them into groups of 6 or 7 and the experiment worked well. The concept of evaporation is
difficult to understand but my students understood the pan was supposed to be the cloud
and not all raindrops are going to be the same size.
Don’t forget about the safety issues with the hot water.
Make sure students understand the ice water that melts does not leak through the pan. I
had several students who thought that’s why there were raindrops.