5 Great Water Cycle Activities and Lessons, Labeling the Water Cycle

teaching the water cycle lessons and activities blog post cover

Teaching the Water Cycle can be fun and engaging for your students. With these water cycle activities and lessons ideas, your students will master labeling the water cycle and understanding! Let students explore new books and technology. Provide them with chances to see the water cycle in action. Finally, follow up with some independent water cycle activities practice and application.

1. Learning About the Water Cycle:

When teaching water cycle, there are a lot of different topics to cover! There are many different brand-new vocabulary that the students are going to learn throughout the unit. I always like to start with simply learning about water, what it is, how it helps us, etc. Then, we dive into how water moves around the world. Check out these fun learning videos and books for the water cycle.

Informational Videos and Activities

water cycle digital learning videos brainpop

water cycle digital learning videos youtube

This BrainPop video outlines the water cycle and how water moves throughout the earth. It covers all major vocabulary and even a little bit more than what I typically teach my kiddos. They loved it though! Or , this UNESCO YouTube video that teaches about the water cycle with a cute story!

Read Alouds and Informational Texts

These water cycle read-alouds or nonfiction independent reads can be used in your centers, reading partner time, or as a mentor text for a whole group lesson. Below are my affiliate links to Amazon for seven different books that will help you in teaching the water cycle!

reading mentor texts for water cycle lessons

2. Testing Out New Knowledge:

After several days of learning what the water cycle is and all the ways that water moves about the earth, it’s time for the kiddos to put all of that information into action. Below, I link to two different experiments that can help solidify your students knowledge with water cycle activities!

Water in a bag on the window experiment to teach the water cycle

(Source: Rookie Parenting)
The water in a bag on the window is always one of my favorites! It really shows the students over time how the water cycle works. And just like with the bean plant experiment I blogged about a few years ago, they love to check on it every single day!

Raining sponge experiment to teach the water cycle

(Source: The Pinterested Parent)
The raining sponge is a very neat project, too, because it shows how the sponge acts as a cloud holding in the rain. Check out this simple and inexpensive science project!

3. Reviewing Knowledge with Water Cycle Activities:

Throughout my teaching water cycle unit, I love to have students work in groups or in partners to review what they’ve learned that day. Below are several resources that can help streamline your daily lesson plans for your water cycle unit.

water cycle activities for your science lessons, reading passages and worksheets

(Source: Water Cycle No-Prep Unit)
The no-prep unit for plants includes many different types of activities to incorporate into your lessons. Each day, the kids can read a different passage and answer comprehension questions. There are also cut and glue diagrams to help, along with writing pieces to match those cut and glue pieces. There are mini books and comprehension questions, writing pages, research pages, and more!

(Source: Water Cycle Flip Book)
This flip book can be used as a culminating review activity or a final activity. Or it can be used towards the beginning of the unit to introduce teaching water cycle. There are five pages. One is reading passages about the water cycle. The Let’s Answer page contains questions about the passage. Let’s List and Let’s Sort let them get interactive with their knowledge of vocabulary and science terms. And the last page, Let’s Write is a place for them to write what they’ve learned!