Water Cycle Game!

Here is a short clip that shows the organized chaos from this afternoon.  They did a pretty good job moving from area to the next independently.  And another clip below:

 

The water cycle game (still life version for those of you who cannot view the video).  Here's how it works.  This drop of water (child) is in the glacier, so she grabbed a glacier bead, then rolled the die.  It looks like she is going to ground water, so she'll mark an arrow on her paper from glacier to ground water, and then move over to the ground water...

Every "water drop's" path was different.  It's pretty amazing how intricate and varied the water cycle can be.  Did the children understand exactly how water moves from one part to another?  No.  This activity was originally designed for an older grade, but Kindergarteners still can enjoy it and learn some things - like where water is, that it moves, that there is more water in the ocean than in plants (several children got 'stuck' in the ocean for quite a while).

You know an activity is successful when seven children opt to continue the water cycle game rather than go to free choice centers.  Or maybe they just really wanted to keep going until they got to the glacier with the shiny beads :)  So did they come home and tell you all about it?