The Water Cycle with Inexpensive Manipulatives

This post is about how children can make a Water Cycle Diagram with inexpensive manipulatives.

I didn't know it but this post started when I pinned a picture from Mrs. Kelly's Kindergarten on my Pinterest Weather Board. Mrs. Kelly and her class made a cute water cycle bulletin board. You can view it here.

Then on my last trip to Michael's craft store, I saw these cute little wooden shapes of the Sun and a Cloud (and they were on sale ... 29 cents each)! Then it hit me to look for images of all the elements of the Water Cycle. (I'm still looking for raindrops and a puddle or ocean plus arrows!)

I already had a snowflake in my craft supplies. For now, I made the missing pieces with foam (from the Dollar Store).

So now I have a smaller version of Mrs. Kelly's Water Cycle that children could use to create their own water cycle.

As the children get older, they can be introduced to the terms evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and collection. Younger children can use the symbols for the Sun, Clouds, Raindrops, and a Puddle (or the Ocean) to learn and illustrate the steps in the Water Cycle and how it keeps repeating.

  Have fun learning about weather!