Teaching elementary-aged children is a rewarding experience, but as educators and parents, finding the time and resources to create engaging lessons can be a challenge. That's where this podcast comes in. Welcome to Naturally Teaching Elementary.

I'm Victoria Zablocki, a certified elementary teacher turned outdoor educator. With over a decade of experience coaching teachers on effective teaching methods, I'm passionate about teaching the whole child with authentic and place-based experiences in school and home settings. Join me as we explore our strategies for teaching with practical teaching tips, insightful interviews, picture book reviews, and more. So let's grow together.

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Naturally Teaching Elementary podcast. My name is Victoria Zablocki and I'm your host.

So last week we talked about using winter to learn about water. I shared how the different temperatures of the season make it so that your learners can naturally experience water in three different states, and how this can create authentic and engaging opportunities for your learners. Well, I want to continue the conversation today by talking about children's water cycle books and how they can help you teach about water in winter.

[1:05]

But before we get into the list of books, my nature note today is about Maple Syrup. Here in Mid-Michigan, sugar bushes are gearing up for Maple Syrup season, a truly magical time. It's hard to say exactly when the season will begin.

It's dependent on the weather. You may be wondering why I'm bringing up Maple Syrup in an episode about books about the water cycle, but the truth is Maple Sugaring would not be possible without the water cycle. So let me give you a quick and dirty explanation of Maple Sugaring.

When the weather outside is above freezing during the day and below freezing at night, the sap that was stored in the roots of the maple trees all winter long begins to make its way back up the trunk thanks to the pressure buildup from the temperature difference at night versus during the day. People then put taps in the trunks of maple trees, and they divert some of that sap running up the trunk into collection buckets. Then they can take those buckets to an evaporation pan to boil excess water away.

The sap boils from 2 to 5 percent sugar until it reaches approximately 67 percent sugar by water leaving the solution through evaporation. Once it's to the right viscosity, it's poured out of the evaporation pan and bottled. Like I said, quick and dirty explanation.

But because of this interesting process and its connection to the water cycle, I'm going to include a book at the end of this list about maple sugaring as a bridge to early spring. Because even though we're in winter right now, spring is coming. The maple sugaring process is a fun and interesting way to explore the water cycle.

And if you'd like even more information about how maple sugaring works, check out my article, How Maple Syrup Season Can Help You Teach Elementary Students. The article includes more details about the process, background information for you as the teacher, as well as ideas for activities for grades K through 5. And I'll make sure to put the link for that in the show notes.

And if you're looking for a mini water cycle unit for second graders, check out my Maple Syrup and Water Cycle Mini Unit for 2^nd grade in my Teachers Pay Teachers store. This mini unit includes made-for-you ELA, math, and science activities aligned with the Common Core State Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards. It includes a suggested picture book list, as well as activities that you can pair with almost any picture book about maple sugaring.

These activities include answering key questions about the text, science vocabulary research, how to make maple syrup informative writing, sap to syrup counting and adding within 100, diagramming the water cycle, and four experiments to determine if processes are reversible. So we're about to get into these children's water cycle books. But if you've listened to my other episodes about picture books before, I'm sure that you've caught on to the fact that I'm very passionate about teaching science concepts with the help of children's literature.

And it's for a good reason. Research has shown that integrating science and literacy has many benefits, including saving teachers' time in their schedule, improved attitudes of children towards science, better overall performance in reading and science, and so many more. For more information about benefits and methods for integrating science and literacy, check out my blog post, Teaching with Books: How to Integrate Science and Literacy for Elementary Classrooms.

[4:07]

All right, now let's get into these children's water cycle books. So book number one is The Drop Goes Plop: A First Look at the Water Cycle by Sam Godwin. This book follows a simplistic look at the water cycle, and the narrative follows a baby gull and its mom as they explore the water cycle.

So starting with droplets leaving the ocean, the mother gull explains how heat from the sun pulls water from the sea and up into the sky making clouds. Then the clouds move over land. A drop of water precipitates into a river as rain.

The drop moves with the flow of the river into a reservoir through a dam, into a water treatment plant, into a water tower, into a bath, down the pipes, into the sewers, back into the water treatment plant, through more pipes, back into the sea, and back up into the air again. And then the book ends with a graphic that shows the whole water cycle with arrows. So this is a great introduction for early childhood learners.

There aren't any big vocabulary words like evaporation, condensation, precipitation, etc. It just illustrates the way water can move in a cyclical way. It could pair well with an informational text if you want to make sure to include those vocabulary words that are missing.

And this book also focuses more closely on water in relation to humans and humans' treatment of water. So there are some steps of the natural water cycle that seem to be missing. And as a note, if you choose to read this book to your students, make sure to read all of the Gull's speech bubbles. Mother Gull has a lot of great information that could help your learners extend their understanding of the water cycle.

[5:37]

Book number two is Water is Water by Miranda Paul. And Miranda Paul gives us a poetic take on the water cycle in this narrative picture book.

Short Stanzas suggest that water is water unless… or steam is steam unless… and gives an example of how the form of water can change when heat is added to it or cool temperatures are added to it. She gives us the change from liquid water to steam, to clouds, to fog, to rain, to puddles, to ice, to snow, to mud, to apples, and lastly to cider. This book follows children as they experience each of these steps in the water cycle, which is a little different than the Drop Goes Plop.

Similar, however, to the Drop Goes Plop, this book doesn't introduce the large vocabulary words often associated with the water cycle, but instead shows how water can change state and is always moving through the cycle. However, after the poem is complete, Paul provides an explanation for each of the moves that water makes throughout the poem, including words like evaporation, vapor, condensation, precipitation, runoff, uptake, and more.

Again, another great option for early childhood learners to see how water is always on the move. Plus, the illustrations by Jason Chin are absolutely beautiful and bring the pages to life.

[6:48]

Book number three is Water Dance by Thomas Locker. Another water cycle book written in a poetic format, each stanza reads almost like a riddle. Who knew the water cycle was so poetic? Locker moves the water from rain to a stream to a waterfall to a lake to a river to the sea to mist to clouds to a storm front to a thunderhead to a storm and to a rainbow.

This book is all about how the water is moving through nature and doesn't reference any manmade or human related elements. Like both, The Drop Goes Plop and Water is Water, this is another picture book that shows off a path of water in the water cycle without using the big vocabulary words we tend to associate with the water cycle.

This book in particular uses a lot of imagery and could lend itself well to ELA integration, either by having your students develop their own stanza to add to the story or creating their own water riddle similar to each of the stanzas in the poem. Just like The Drop Goes Plop and Water is Water, the author includes background information after the storyline to explain more of the scientific information about the water cycle. These illustrations are by Thomas Locker as well and are gorgeous, adding to the amazing imagery he creates with his words.

[8:00]

Book number four is Drop: An Adventure Through the Water Cycle by Emily Kate Moon. This book follows a single drop and her journey on earth. She spends a lot of her time in the ocean until the sun heats are up and she floats into the sky.

She then gets colder and returns to liquid. Then she makes clouds with her droplet friends and when a bunch of them get together, they start to create sparks in a thunderstorm. She then returns to the ground as rain, but she's also been hail and snow throughout her journey.

Then she falls onto a mountain where she ends up in a stream, then a river and then a lake. The author shares how Drop can be stuck in one place for thousands of years like when Drop was in a glacier or an iceberg. Then they talk about what happens if Drop ends up in a forest where she could end up sinking into groundwater or she could be pulled up into a plant and then up into the air.

The story ends with the author introducing the idea that Drop can enter different plants and animals including people. This book is another option for introducing the water cycle without using the big water cycle words. It has beautiful illustrations that can show how water moves through its cycle in an engaging and almost human-like way, and kids will think that Drop is funny because of all of her silly comments as she goes on her adventures.

Because of the illustrations and the comments from the water droplet, this book seems to be a better fit for early childhood learners through maybe third grade age. It's a little young for fourth and fifth graders. It would be another great option to pair with an informational text about the water cycle to get those vocab words.

[9:25]

Book number five is Once Upon a Raindrop by James Carter. And the book begins by talking about where water may have come from and how long it's been on earth. The author shares how the early water created clouds and then precipitated, creating a blue planet that spins around the sun.

Then they move into the water cycle, beginning in the ocean, where the sun heats the water, it moves into clouds, then the clouds move over land and rain down. Then enter streams and rivers that feed into the ocean again. The book ends with a nod to our atmosphere and gravity that allows water to move through its cycle, unlike water found as ice in space.

This book feels more like a non-fiction text than a narrative, and imparts information through pictures and rhyme. The water cycle is covered multiple times in this easy-to-listen-to storyline. The author uses words like melted and boiled, but again doesn't get into bigger vocabulary words like evaporation or precipitation.

The illustrations by Nimoko are lovely watercolors that your learners could have a lot of fun trying to replicate. The author ends the book with five facts about water. And one thing to note is that this book is in British English, and uses a different form of spelling certain words, and also introduces the “loo” as a location for water in the story.

[10:37]

Book number six is When Cloud Became a Cloud by Rob Hodgson. This is a fun narrative that shares how the water cycle and weather work together to make clouds and change them into the different shapes and colors that we see in the world. Broken up into chapters, this picture book starts with water droplets forming a cloud that travels thanks to the sun and the wind.

She ends up at a location where she gets so cold, her water droplets return to the earth as snow. She has some fun joining some fog close to the ground, and after traveling some more, she gathers a lot of water droplets, gets full and gray, and then she rains. The cloud ends up grouping together with a bunch of other clouds, creates a cloud party, ends up making an electric charge, and then a storm happens.

After the storm, the sun shines its light through water droplets in the air and creates a rainbow. The book ends where it began, over the lake with the sun heating the water so much that the water droplets go into the air and create a new cloud. Unlike many of the other books on this list, there isn't a focus on just one water droplet and what happens to it.

There's a focus on a cloud and how water interacts with her within the water cycle. The illustrations are great at showing the congregation of water droplets in the cloud, raining from the cloud, creating snowflakes, and more. The language is playful but pointed and gives each step in the water cycle an action that is easy for elementary children to relate to.

It's highly engaging and your learners will love all the different adventures that cloud goes on. Again, this book doesn't use the large vocabulary associated with the water cycle, but it's a great combination narrative to talk about weather alongside the water cycle.

[12:05]

Book number seven is The Great Big Water Cycle Adventure by Kay Barnham. This book begins in a similar fashion to many of the other books on this list with the water in the ocean. The narrator explains how the sun heats the water up and becomes vapor. Then when the vapor reaches cooler temps in the atmosphere, the gas cools to liquid and when lots of the droplets come together, they form clouds.

As more and more droplets stick together, they return to the earth as rain, hail, sleet or snow. And the narrator explains that if the water returns to the ocean, then the water cycle starts all over again. But if it falls on land, then it could enter a stream or run down a mountain.

They also mention that sometimes water falls onto plants and can be sucked up by the roots, or sometimes water falls on land and it can trickle into cracks and move into the ground, taking a long time to make its way back to the ocean. There's mention of water falling as snow and remaining that way for thousands of years. The book ends when the narrator brings up the fact that the earth is covered mostly in saltwater and very little freshwater.

There's a diagram at the very end of the story to show how the water cycle moves cyclically. This book is like a hybrid between a narrative and an informational text. It has a very matter of fact tone with illustrations that suggest a storyline.

There are great examples of how the water cycle can move in multiple different ways while staying within the cycle, which is a nice change of pace since some of the other books on this list make it look more linear than the water cycle actually is. Again, this book does not include the big vocabulary words we associate with the water cycle, but it's a great introduction to how water moves within that cycle.

[13:34]

Book number eight is From River to Raindrop: The Water Cycle by Emma Carlson Berne. This book is a nonfiction text and explains the journey a water droplet takes to drop onto a child's umbrella. Starting with a river, Berne explains how the water flows under the sun, which warms the water causing it to evaporate into a gas called water vapor. Then the water vapor rides the wind into the atmosphere where it becomes part of a cloud and condenses back into a liquid.

Then the liquid water moves on the wind in the cloud to connect with dust inside creating droplets. Droplets connect and get heavy and come back to the earth as rain. This is the only informational text that I included on this list because it shares a story while also sharing facts.

I read a lot of nonfiction books while looking for examples for this episode, and they were all too technical, too wordy, and dry. Reading aloud a purely nonfiction text to your students about the water cycle would likely fall flat. Whereas, this informational text still tells the story of the water cycle journey but in a more interesting way.

As a bonus, it includes photographs in lieu of illustrations, which adds to the effectiveness of the content. This would be a fantastic book to pair with any of the books that don't use the vocabulary you may want to introduce your students to.

[14:53]

Book number nine is Rivers of Sunlight: How the Sun Moves Water Around the Earth by Molly Bang and Penny Chisholm.

Bang anthropomorphizes the sun in this narrative picture book. The sun shares its story about how it affects the movement of the water on earth in first-person language. It starts with an explanation about where water can be found on earth, starting with the vast majority in the ocean as salt water.

Then the sun begins explaining how it helps water move through its cycle, starting with warming the salty sea, energizing the molecules so they evaporate into water vapor that floats up into the atmosphere, catches some dust, becomes liquid, collects in a cloud, and precipitates down into the sea. The sun shares that sometimes water doesn't return to the sea. Sometimes it precipitates down onto the land or into bodies of fresh water.

Then they can seep down into underground reservoirs called aquifers. And then the sun shares about the role of plants in bringing water up from the ground and then emitting water vapor back into the atmosphere. This book is a wealth of information about the role of the sun in moving water around our earth, supporting life.

It shares valuable information about the cyclical nature of water, as well as where water can be found and how valuable of a resource it is. It is definitely a longer book, and between the length of the book and its vocabulary, this one would be more appropriate for your upper elementary learners.

[16:10]

Book number 10 is The Snowflake: A Water Cycle Story by Neil Waldman. And this book is organized by month, so a little different than any of the other books we've talked about. So in January, a snowflake falls. Then in February, the snowflake gets blown into a pond on the side of a mountain where it melts, then freezes as part of the pond's ice.

In March, it melts and then trickles down into an underground stream in the mountain. In April, it resurfaces through a spring and ends up flowing into a river that passes by a bunch of human settlements. In May, the droplet ends up in an irrigation system on a farm and lands on a plant.

In June, it evaporates into fog and eventually up into the atmosphere where it becomes a part of a cloud. In July, it becomes a part of a storm and then precipitates down into a reservoir where it gets filtered. In August, the droplet moves its way through a series of underground pipes.

In September, it ends up sucked up a pipe and comes out of a faucet where it falls back into the sink and moves down another pipe. In October, the droplet makes its way through more pipes and back into the ocean where a fish swallows it, but then it passes through the fish and returns to the sea. In November, it moves on a wave and crashes on to a beach.

And in December, it evaporates back into the atmosphere, becomes a part of a cloud, is blown thousands of miles away, and then precipitates back to a mountain as a snowflake. This book has the interesting benefit of a timeline showing that water is moving and changing all year long. And what we may think would be a quick journey, like moving through a water treatment plant, could actually take a long time due to water's small size.

This book introduces some of the vocabulary we usually think about with the water cycle, but in a subtle and less drawing way than an informational text. This is another long book that would be more appropriate for upper elementary students. The author ends with a note about how the water that you use in your bathroom could have been used by Abraham Lincoln or swallowed by a dinosaur, which is an intriguing way to get your students thinking about the journey of water droplets.

[18:11]

And book number 11 is Maple Syrup From the Sugarhouse by Laurie Lazzaro Knowlton. This book shows off the process of maple sugaring in great detail within a narrative. Beginning with a mention of the weather, Kelsey and her father go through their sugarbush and tap the maple trees, inserting spiles and hanging buckets.

The sap runs and fills the buckets and then family and friends help Kelsey and her dad dump the sap into a storage tank where it's taken to the sugarhouse. At the sugarhouse, her dad dumps the sap into a larger holding tank that feeds the evaporator pan where they boil the sap down to syrup. This book is a great introduction to the process of making maple syrup.

Between the illustrations and the author's willingness to use sugaring related words like spile, this book brings to life the mysterious process in an understandable way for children. It also uses water cycle words like boiling, evaporating and steam to help tell the story of making maple syrup in a sugarhouse. If you're looking for a great book to include maple syrup in your studies, this is a keeper.

The author also includes maple syrup facts at the end that could be helpful to you and your students.

[19:16]

So in a nutshell, we talked about 10 Children's Water Cycle Books to Introduce the Water Cycle. Titles that were summarized include The Drop Goes Plop: A First Look at the Water Cycle by Sam Godwin, Water is Water by Miranda Paul, Water Dance by Thomas Locker, Drop: An Adventure Through the Water Cycle by Emily Kate Moon, Once Upon a Raindrop by James Carter, When Cloud Became a Cloud by Rob Hodgson, The Great Big Water Cycle Adventure by Kay Barnham, From River to Raindrop: The Water Cycle by Emma Carlson Berne, Rivers of Sunlight: How the Sun Moves Water Around the Earth by Molly Bang and Penny Chisholm, The Snowflake: A Water Cycle Story by Neil Waldman, and Maple Syrup from the Sugarhouse by Laurie Lazzaro Knowlton.

And if you're looking for more picture books about Maple Syruping, check out my article Tapping into Learning: 15 Maple Syrup Books for Elementary Science on naturallyteaching.com or follow the link in the show notes. And don't forget, if you're looking for a mini water cycle unit that coordinates with these books, check out my Maple Syrup and Water Cycle Mini Unit for 2nd Grade in my Teachers Pay Teachers Store. So thanks for taking time to listen today.

I know you're super busy and I truly appreciate the time you take to tune in. If you have any questions, wonderings, or children's water cycle books that you like to read, get a hold of me on Instagram at naturally.teaching or you can email me at victoriaatnaturallyteaching.com. And don't forget to check out the show notes for this episode at naturallyteaching.com/episode39, where I'll have all the links to everything that I mentioned.

And although this seems unrelated, due to this time of the year if you were considering taking part in the Great Backyard Bird Count, it starts Friday, February 14th, 2025, and goes through Monday, February 17th, 2025. And if you're not entirely sure what you should do to participate, check out my article, The Great Backyard Bird Count: How to Take Part for Elementary Teachers. I share how to participate, how to submit your data, picture books to introduce counting to your learners, field guides for identification, activities for learners, and more.

It is a great opportunity to have your learners participate in a citizen science project alongside millions of other people on these days. So this is your reminder, just in case you forgot and you wanted to do it, here is your reminder, go out, count birds, or stay in your classroom and count from your window. So thanks again for joining me today and until next time, keep exploring, keep learning, and keep naturally teaching.

Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode of the Naturally Teaching Elementary Podcast. I hope you found it informative, inspiring, and full of actionable insights to enhance your teaching journey. Connect with me on social media for more updates, science tidbits, and additional resources.

You can find me on Instagram and Facebook at naturally.teaching. Let's continue the conversation and share our passion for teaching elementary-age children together. Don't forget to visit my website at naturallyteaching.com for all the show notes from today's episode.

If you enjoyed today's episode, please consider leaving a review on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback helps me improve and reach more educators like you. Thank you again for listening and until next time, keep exploring, keep learning, and keep naturally teaching.