Cloud in a bottle

We can make our own clouds in a bottle.

You need to put cold water into a bottle, then empty it out again.

Light a match and drop it into the bottle.

Squeeze the bottle.

Nothing happens.

When you stop squeezing the bottle, hey presto, you have a cloud in the bottle.

How does this work?

Clouds are formed when water droplets in the air cool and then collect on dust particles. In this demonstration, the dust particles were provided by the smoke from the match. The air inside the bottle was cooled by releasing the pressure after the bottle was squeezed.

We were delighted to be able to make our own clouds!

Water Cycle Demonstration

We have been learning a lot about the water cycle.

Today we did our own water cycle demonstration.

We half filled a cup with water, and marked the level on the cup.

We covered this with cling film and left it on the radiator.

We hoped that some of the water would evaporate, that the water vapour would hit the cling film and would condense into water droplets, and that it would fall again as drops of water (precipitation).

We left the water on the radiator, and by home time we could see the water cycle in action.

We were very impressed!

Learning about China

We are learning lots of interesting things about China.

We saw a Chinese spoon, an indoor padded jacket (from Japan) and we practised using chopsticks.

We are also doing a play set in China long ago, so it will be good to know what traditional Chinese clothes look like and about some Chinese customs.