clouds

Today we made clouds in class. I'll be the first to admit that science isn't ever exactly at the forefront of my mind. The kids love it though. It's a good bribe. I did in fact use the line "If we don't finish our reading plot cubes, we won't be able to get out the matches and do some science." Suddenly my room was full of helpers wanting to light things on fire.

Of course we didn't actually light anything on fire, but we did make a few clouds. It's a simple experiment really. You put some warm water in a large 2 liter bottle and close the lid. Allow some condensation to collect. At this point we talked about water vapor. Then my teacher's pet for the week came, prepared to take the lid off and to swiftly return it when I placed a match inside. The smoke seemingly creates the cloud. However, when you add the water vapor to the smoke/dust mixture, then squeeze the bottle therefore increasing the air pressure... The 'cloud' disappears.

Insert a fourth grade, "whoa!" right here.

Clouds are made of water vapor, a decrease in air pressure, and a mixture of particles from dust and smoke amongst other things. However, every now and again clouds are made up of hurt feelings, grumpiness, sadness, or selfishness.

I feel like I made their own cloud and I've been running from it. One of my greatest pet peeves is negativity, so when someone tries to send their negatively created clouds my direction I run. But you can't really out run a cloud. Sooner or later it catches up to you. Then you get rained on.

The cloud caught me, right after the sunniest of days. I was umbrella-less, so I ended up soaked and angry. I'm not proud of it, but it happened. However, perhaps because of this I think I can get rid of the cloud. I thin, now that I've let the negativity get to me, I can have a good conversation about it and leave it behind. I refuse to let a little rain mess up my parade. ;o)