A Raindrop's Journey

A Raindrop's Journey

By Suzanne Slade

Illustrated by Holli Conger

Capstone's Follow it! Series

Picture Window Books, 2011

ISBN:  9781404862661

Nonfiction picture book

Grades 1-3

 A Raindrop's Journey

This fun picture book takes kids on an exhilarating ride through the eyes of a drop of rain. Tumbling from a cloud, the raindrop is part of a rainbow before it falls into a stream and later splashes into a lake, where it gets sucked up into a water treatment plant. From there it goes into a faucet, is drunk by a child, and sweated out. The sweat falls to the sidewalk and turns to water vapor, where it gathers with other droplets to finally create a cloud, freezes and becomes a snowflake.

The cartoon-like illustrations and pithy comments from the drops enliven the water cycle story and the book includes in depth parts of the cycle to explain how we get clean drinking water—but keeps it simple to understand. A straightforward narrative details specifics about each spread the kids should have a good time reading about the water cycle. The idea of all our water moving constantly and being recycled is a fascinating one to young learners and this book is a great way to introduce the water cycle.

Activity

Use the information from the book to create a diagram of the water cycle. Label the main steps and then write a paragraph about what the diagram shows.

Use this site for more information and coloring sheets at the bottom of the page.

This site has a large number of links about the water cycle.

National Science Standard: properties of earth materials; changes in earth and sky

Book from Capstone breakfast at TLA. Thank you, Capstone. It was great fun!