Living Root Garden School • Water & Weather • Name: ______________________
🔍 The Case
The case of the vanishing puddle — it rained this morning, but by lunchtime the puddle is gone. Where did the water go?
Follow the four big moves of the water cycle: evaporation — the sun heats water and it leaps into the air as an invisible gas called water vapor; condensation — vapor cools high up and squeezes into tiny droplets that make a cloud; precipitation — droplets get too heavy and fall as rain; collection — water gathers in rivers, lakes, and the ground, and the trip starts over.
Ask where each raindrop goes when it lands: it can soak in — scientists call that infiltration — or it can run off across the surface into streets and storm drains. What decides is the ground itself.
Compare a sponge and a sidewalk: healthy soil is full of tiny spaces called pores, so it drinks rain like a sponge. Concrete and asphalt have almost no pores, so rain races off them — and as it runs, it picks up oil, trash, and fertilizer and carries them into waterways.
Rule out the lookalikes: a cloud is not steam — water vapor is invisible, and if you can see it, those are tiny liquid droplets. And the water in your bottle today has been a cloud, a river, a snowflake, and a puddle before — no new water is ever made, it just keeps traveling.
Ask: A sealed jar sits in the sun — will it make its own cloud and its own little rain? Write your guess before you seal the lid.
Try: Build a mini water cycle in a sealed jar: a little water in the bottom, the lid on tight, the jar in a sunny spot. Check it each day and log the condensation on the glass and any little “rain” that falls inside.
Stretch (Teens & Growers ready for more): Build a rain gauge, measure a real storm, and work out how many gallons fell on your roof. Does the number surprise you — and where did all that water go, soak in or run off?
Tell: Fill in the log below — what you saw in the jar each day — then finish this sentence in words or a labeled drawing: “The jar made rain because ___.”
Date
What I saw
What surprised me
Date: ____/____/____
Date: ____/____/____
Date: ____/____/____
Date: ____/____/____
🛠️ Build It
Draw your jar weather — the condensation, the droplets, and the little rain falling inside.
🗣️ Be the Teacher
Tell someone where a puddle goes when it disappears — in your own words, no reading off the packet.
🏅 I can…
☐ I can trace a raindrop from cloud to ground.
Portfolio check
☐ Guide read
☐ Case solved
☐ Ask, Try, Tell done
☐ Build It filed: Jar weather log
☐ Taught someone
☐ Badge earned: I can trace a raindrop from cloud to ground.
Living Root Garden School • livingrootgarden.com/homeschool/ • Free — print as many copies as you like. File this sheet with your portfolio log. Sprouts do the Read, the Case, and Build It; Growers try the Ask, Try, Tell stretch when ready; Teens do the whole packet — including teaching it back.