Snow is formed when temperatures are low and there is moisture – in the form of tiny ice crystals – in the atmosphere.

When these tiny ice crystals collide they stick together in clouds to become snowflakes. If enough ice crystals stick together, they’ll become heavy enough to fall to the ground.

Using insta-snow, your little one performed two actions.

They first learned about what a sphere is, and formed one with their “snow”, and then talked about the letter W, and used their snow to make their very own letter W!

Your little ones have a powerful desire to explore and question the world around them.

They couple their imaginations with accessible materials to recreate many of the situations they learn about on a daily basis.

They do this as a means to integrate the known with the unknown.

A number of studies have indicated that games can help kids develop essential emotional and intellectual skills that support academic achievement.  For most preschoolers, collaborative games are a highly-social activity. In many of these games, players work together in teams to achieve goals, compete against other players or both. Their teamwork abilities are put to the test, and they must hone their communication and interpersonal skills in order to progress.

These pro-social behaviors are critical for healthy social development — children with positive social skills are more likely to have high self-esteem, good peer relationships and achieve in school. For this activity, we played a game called Rain Rain, Go Away. Each child was given a paper raindrop that they were told to hold onto as they walked across the circle rug.

They would do this during the music, and when the music stopped, they were instructed to put their raindrops on the ground to sit on. There were also segments in the music where rain sounds would initiate, and during this portion, students placed their raindrops over their heads.

In addition to the social benefits acquired, your little one was given the opportunity to practice their listening skills! Listening skills are very important because they help children learn how to develop their language skills, so we are constantly playing games that foster this important developmental task.

Teaching scientific concepts to young children poses unique challenges, so in our classroom, we use simple vocabulary and fun projects to keep them captivated!

Water rotation is an ideal introduction to rain formation, so we talked about where rain comes from and where it goes!

With paper towels, plastic droppers, bowls, and blue water, we practiced dropping rain on our “clouds” and then watched as it dropped into the bowls!

Hands-on activities such as these reinforce complicated concepts and allow your preschoolers to grasp how rain works!

Have you ever wondered how clouds form? We all learn the water cycle in school – water falls from the clouds in the form of rain or snow and collects on the ground.

The water on the ground heats up and turns to vapor and the vapor travels up into the atmosphere and creates clouds.

When a rain cloud gets so full of water or mass, the water has to go somewhere and will break through the cloud and start to fall to the ground.

To demonstrate this phenomenon on a preschool level, your child created a shaving cream cloud!

As they poured or dripped the water over the shaving cream cloud, the blue water started to break through the foamy mass.

Doing so enable your budding meteorologist to observe their cloud as it gained mass and altered its composition.