It’s all about seasons this month that we are learning about and trust me, it’s such a wonderful experience for self as well because I am getting to know so much more with little ones. Amongst all the discussions about seasons, we stopped at monsoons first as kids are most excited about it (it’s their birthday season after all!!!). But I added a little more excitement to the learning process with this quick and catchy STEAM activity. Simple science experiments are my favourite to use and by far a hit with our kids. And undoubtedly, today’s learning is incomplete without hands-on experience and so we did this simple DIY Rain Cloud experiment as part of STEAM activity.

DIY Rain Cloud Experiment

Making a rain cloud in a jar is a fun and easy way to teach children how it rains. Kids will love the magical ‘wow’ factor and YOU’LL love the easy prep!

Materials required-

• 1 x see-through glass jar / a longish glass
• tap water
• shaving foam
• blue food colour or water colour
• a dropper

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Activity-

• Fill your jar about three quarters full with water ( this depicts the air)
• Use the shaving foam on top of the water (this depicts the clouds)

Once we made a fluffy “cloud” on top of the water using shaving cream we were ready to get to the fun part: making it rain!

• Let the foam settle a bit
• Now drop food colour into the ‘cloud’ (depicting water droplets)
• Wait for the “rain” to fall

As you drop more coloured drops into the cloud, your cloud fills up & cloud becomes heavier and heavier and the food colour drops fall through as rain!

Within a few seconds, the first drops of colored rain made their way through the cloud and dropped into the water underneath.

There were cheers of excitement and lots of ‘wowws’ & “awesomes’  as we watched the coloured water drop down through the clouds!

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STEAM Concept learnt-

This was a perfect kick start to learning about weather.

• Clouds are formed when water vapor rises into the air and condenses onto tiny particles of dust. When billions of these droplets come together, a visible cloud forms.
• Explain to your child that when water droplets grow heavy enough in the sky, gravity pulls them down from the clouds as raindrops, just like in the experiment.

Making a rain cloud in a jar is obviously a simplistic model of how it actually rains, but this rain cloud experiment also gives young children a hands-on visual that is extremely valuable to their learning. Plus, it’s fun!

Do let us know if you try this STEAM activity with your kids!

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Go Mommy!