[Video] Tips for Teaching the Water Cycle

While celebrating the earth is given a special day each year in April, students are fascinated with learning about the ground and the elements and the weather all year long. Recycling, limiting energy usage, and cleaning up litter are all important concepts to instill in our future generations, but what's equally important is their understanding of how the environment functions as its own thriving system - whether humans are here to enjoy it, or not.

With rock cycles, life cycles, tide patterns, and more to explore, today we're going to talk about the water cycle, and tips for teaching it with a full class, in small groups, or as a take-home project for students.

Whole Class Activity

Partially assemble a visual display of the water cycle on your bulletin board and have students come up to the board to place their own element in the correct spot. They could be holding plants, precipitation, words, rain clouds, or arrows - and talk about how each addition is important in the greater system. When they're finished, you have a great key display for continued learning or assessment for the remainder of the unit of study!

Tip: Use the Perfecta® STP Series Poster Design System to create a background for your board, then use the Cutout Maker 1800 Digital Die Cut Machine and Water Cycle Collection in the Engage Every Learner® Content for the shapes!

Small Group Activity

Divide the class into smaller groups and give them each an envelope of shapes with construction paper and markers to create their own water cycle displays. You may choose to create your own display as a key for them to reference, or simply walk around the room available for questions as they remember what they've learned. 

Tip: You can again use the VariQuest Cutout Maker 1800 for shapes needed in this exercise!

Individual Take-Home Activity

Send packets home with students for creating their own water cycles and encourage parental involvement to further reinforce the concept as they learn by doing. Put together kits with shapes for creativity in designing their own water cycle graphic, and display the completed projects in your classroom or hallways to showcase your students' work!

Tip: Use the VariQuest Motiva® 400 Specialty Printer to create sticker labels for each student's take-home packet, then of course the Cutout Maker 1800 will help you create beautiful shapes for the kit!

Your students will really enjoy their interactive learning experience, and you'll really enjoy saving some time in the process. For added durability and use year-after-year, consider laminating your materials with the VariQuest Cold Laminator 2510, too!

To learn more about the VariQuest Visual and Kinesthetic Learning Suite and Engage Every Learner Content, schedule a no-obligation demonstration with one of our expert education consultants, to see how our tools could help you save time and money at your school!