Weather changes everyday, and the science behind it is pretty interesting. My kids are always asking me about how different weather patterns happen. So, I often turn our chats into lessons. Whether discussing cloud formation or how to make it rain, they get excited about learning it all. If your kiddos are just as curious as mine, here are five experiments about the weather they’re sure to find amazing.
5 Experiments About the Weather
How to Make a Stormy Weather Clouds in a Jar
If you’re looking for a fun activity to do at home with your kids, I hope you give this kid-friendly science experiment a try. Here’s a quick video clip to illustrate how to make a cloud in a jar. If you’d like more science updates, please be sure to subscribe to My Fun Princess Life on YouTube.
Here’s what you’ll need for this this step-by-step cloud tutorial:
A jar with a lid
Aerosol spray (Most cloud experiments require the use of a match. However, we decided to avoid it for safety reasons. Hairspray is a better alternative, but we ended up using cooking spray because we didn’t have any on hand).
Hot water
Ice
Directions:
Pour a little boiling hot water in a jar. The water should heat the jar pretty quickly, but you can also swirl it around to make sure the entire container is heated.
Cover the jar with a lid and add ice on top.
Wait about 30 seconds.
Remove the lid and spray into the jar, then cover the jar again and watch the cloud form. You can also watch the cloud escape when the lid is removed.
Here’s What Happens:
The warm moist air from the hot water in the jar rises and cools because of the ice that’s on top. The spray is like dust, pollution or smoke that’s in the air. The combination of the spray, rising warm air and sinking cool air produces floating clouds.
How to Make Rain Science Experiment for Kids
Believe it or not, rain is made up of more than just water. The naked eye may not be able to see the dust particles, insects, grass, and chemicals inside the droplets. So make sure your little one doesn’t drink the water the next time it rains.
That said, there are a few types of precipitation that forms and there are different ways to produce rain. There is frontal rain, which involves warm and cold air colliding to produce precipitation.
Orographic rain is usually associated with mountains, where warmer moist air is forced up a hill and cools as it moves up into the atmosphere leading to precipitation.
There’s also convective rain that involves the air mass becoming unstable, as a result of heating from the sun. Convective rain is one of the most common forms of precipitation and we decided to do an experiment to demonstrate how rain happens.
Here’s what you’ll need:
Hot water
Ice
Jar
Plate
Directions:
1. Boil water
2. Pour water into the jar a little more than half way
3. Place a plate on top of the jar
4. Fill plate with ice cubes
Explanation:
Boiling water mimics the sun, as it heats the ponds, rivers, lakes and streams. The liquid evaporates and turns into gas, which then rises into the air. Placing a plate on top of the container with the boiling water and adding ice is the same as water vapor becoming cooler as it rises into the atmosphere. The water vapor forms clouds. As it grows bigger and heavier, it eventually condenses forming rain. With the help of gravity, the rain falls to the ground.
Rainbow Experiment: How Does a Rainbow Form?
When it comes to explaining to kids how a rainbow forms, keep the explanation as simple as possible. You can say: a rainbow forms typically following rainfall. Sun shines its light through drops of water in the sky. The light reflects pretty colors that make up a rainbow.
Keep in mind that there are other things involving how a rainbow is created, like how sunlight is made up of different colors we don’t normally see. When it enters the Earth, the light is white. Also, the light hits the raindrops at a certain angle allowing us to see the different colors that make up a rainbow.
Each color has different angles depending on the speed as they enter the raindrops, forming red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet stripes. You don’t have to worry adding these extra details in your descriptions. Kids just want basic explanations.
While you’re at it, follow up your weather lesson with a fun experiment. It helps kids gain a better understanding of how each weather phenomenon works. It also makes learning fun when they do cool science experiments. Plus, they may even want to use it for their next school science project.
Here’s what you’ll need for your rainbow experiment:
Bowl of water
Mirror
Flashlight
Construction paper to show rainbow or dark room/closet
This video illustrates how it’s done:
Tornado Experiment for Kids
The first step in mimicking this natural disaster is using two bottles instead of one. Princess had a hard time with using one bottle and enlisted help from her dad the first time around. Using two bottles with a connecting ring was a little tough at first. But she mastered it with practice. So if at first you don’t succeed, try try again.
While you’re at it, now would be a great time to speak with your little ones about natural disasters like tornadoes and what to do in case it happens. We talked about tornado safety tips including, going down into the basement and staying away from the windows. Getting into a bathtub can also help save your life during a tornado too. The bathroom has strong framing and the pipes in the walls could help hold them together. But you should make sure to have a pillow, cushion, or blanket to protect yourself from debris (especially if there’s window close by).
Easy Frosty Weather Science Experiment
Frost can happen on a cold, clear night with light winds. Since cold air is more dense than warm air, the water vapor in the air sinks to the ground and condenses. Because the ground is at or below 32 degree Fahrenheit, it freezes on contact.
Keep in mind that the air above the ground is warmer and more humid. The temperature difference is also needed to allow frost to form. This explains why you’ll see frost on your windshield, grass, trees etc.
What You’ll Need:
3 tablespoons of salt
ice (enough to fill half of the can)
spoon
Directions:
Place ice inside of the can, add the salt, and stir. Wait about a minute and watch the frost develop outside of the can.
Explanation:
Even though the salt melts the ice, the mixture is below freezing. The moisture from the air outside of the can and that’s how frost forms!
How to Make a Volcano and Watch it Erupt!
When it came to teaching my then 4-year-old daughter about volcanoes, I didn’t go into too much details. “A volcano is a mountain with a hole on top,” I said. I showed her photos of the molten rock found beneath the Earth’s surface. “When there is a lot of pressure that builds up, the volcano erupts (or as she likes to say, explode) and hot lava comes out of the hole,” I added.
At this age there’s no need to get into plate tectonics shifting and whatnot. I think when speaking with young children, your best bet is to keep it simple. Besides, demonstrating is way more awesome!
Here’s what you’ll need:
Two spoonfuls of baking soda
Two spoonfuls of dish soap
Small empty bottle
Red food coloring (optional)
2 oz of vinegar
Lots of Play-doh
