Cloud Unit: The Heavens Declare His Glory

The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the works of his hands.
Psalm 19:1

Old Crow shared with us that he was interested in learning about the clouds.  So I set out to make that happen.  As I began looking for ideas and projects, a unit began to take shape.

Here's a look into our fun with clouds. :)

Books We Enjoyed

          

               

Nature Study

Each day we spent time outside cloud watching.  We would talk about the clouds we saw and take pictures with our camera.  (I saved these pictures in a separate file on my computer for a later activity.)  Then Old Crow would draw in his nature journal.

Bible Study

As I began gathering ideas, I was fascinated by how many times in Scripture the Lord used clouds for his purposes.  Here are the verses we read and discussed.

Our main verse for memorization was Psalm 19:1.

Exodus 13:21   God went ahead of the Israelites in a cloud.

Exodus 16:10   The glory of God appeared in a cloud.

Exodus 19:9   God comes to the people in a dense cloud.

Exodus 24:15-18   The glory of God settled over Mt. Sinai in a cloud.

Luke 21:27   Jesus will return in a cloud of power and great glory.

1 Thessalonians 4:17   We will be caught up in the clouds with the Lord.  

Craftivities

Cloud People:  Our first activity was to make "Cloud People."  I made 3 different clouds in their typical shapes and 3 different pairs of legs in varying lengths.  Old Crow looked at each cloud shape and labeled them and then added the correct pair of legs.  So the stratus clouds are low in the sky.  Cumulus are in the lower/middle part of the sky, and cirrus are high in the sky.

Cloud Art:  To create a puffy and textured paint, we mixed together equal parts of Elmer's glue and shaving cream.  Then Old Crow created his clouds.  Once dry, the paint is a soft and puffy!  Very cool!!!

Then he wrote his memory verse and we added it to his painting.

It looked like a... activity:  After reading It Looked Like Spilt Milk, Old Crow designed his own cloud shape with cottonballs.

Cloud Flip Book:  Old Crow used cottonballs again for this activity as he depicted the three different clouds.  You can get the labels here.  

 

Sensory Play

Cloud Dough:  Instead of "playdough," we created Cloud Dough.  By mixing together 8 cups of flour with 1 cup of baby oil, we had a soft, cloud-like sensory activity.

Soft enough to feel like a cloud...yet it held its shape.  

I suspected Crazy Horse would love this...and boy, was I right!  He played, played, and played!  :)

Ivory soap cloud experiment:  We put a bar of original Ivory soap (and it must be Ivory) in the microwave and watched as it transformed into a soap cloud.  It grew and grew and grew!!  It feels stiff in the expanded form but can be easily smashed into smithereens...looking like snow.  So beware of doing this part in the house.  We also took it into the bathtub and let it snow!  You can find more great ideas for the soap cloud here.

Shaving Cream:  We sprayed shaving cream onto the tabletop and had fun.  Drawing, writing, and playing in the cloud-like shaving cream!

Extras

All About Clouds...YouTube Children's Video

Clouds...YouTube Children's Video

Science for Kids: Clouds...website

All About Clouds reponse sheet for recording information from videos, websites, books, etc.

Cloud Snack...jello and whipped cream.  :)  

Now as for all of those daily pictures we took of the clouds...

Once we have several pictures of all the different types of clouds, I will have them printed.  Then we are going to sort them by type and create a booklet.  We'll also add our craftivities to the booklet to have all our projects in one place.  I made these booklets once we finished our Butterfly study and Crop studies.  We keep them in our Nature Center, and Old Crow loves to go back through them and look at the things we have done.

Happy cloud hunting!  And I hope you see more than just clouds when you look into the sky...I hope see the glory of God and the works of His hands.

Jenny

P.S.  I'm sure family and friends may wonder where Memphis Belle was during this entire unit.  I assure you we have not given her away. :)  Most of these activities were done during her naptime.  We saved the cloud dough...she'll get her turn. ;)