Earlier this year in one of the modules for her Physical Science curriculum, Meredith studied factors that affect the earth’s weather. As is often the case, she became the teacher and I was the student, because I’ve forgotten much of what she’s learning, and teaching someone else is a solid way to seal information into our minds. Plus, she’s become a bit of a science buff.
When Meredith started sharing what she learned about how water vapor in the atmosphere influences weather either as humidity, which we know all too well here, or by condensing into clouds, a tasty idea began forming in my head that could merge her love of science with another course she’s enjoying this year, cake decorating.
Recently, Meredith requested to make a cake on her own from start to finish; so together we came up with the idea of creating a “Cloud Types” cake. As frequently happens, this quickly turned into a “project” while we gathered information about the different clouds, their names and classifications, how they appear to the observer on the ground, and at what altitudes they appear in the sky.
With all our information in hand, and cakes baked the day before, Meredith cleared the school table, where she knew she would have considerably more room, and set to work.
I served as historian, documenting the whole process with photos. My secondary job, but one which Meredith expressed multiple times was my PRIMARY job, was to keep the frosting coming; and let me tell you, this cake took a considerable amount of frosting!
You’ll notice Meredith snagged the apron I begged off Imperial Sugar following a blogging conference I attended last year where they were one of the sponsors. She has been wearing it all year; for all practical purposes it appears she assumed ownership somewhere along the way.
Does this happen to anyone else? Usage equates to ownership?
Meredith’s Cloud Cake Science project, in its entirety, was submitted to Imperial Sugar and is now posted in the Kid’s Kitchen under “Edible Art Projects”. I told her she was pretty hot stuff since she also got double booking at their sister site, under Fun Kid’s Projects.
Her response? “What’s next?!”
Imagine the eye rolling to my response, “The sky’s the limit, baby.”
And I wouldn’t be a good mother if I didn’t add, “Now clean up this mess.”
FREE Cloud Types Visual Quiz & Graphics
Meredith and I both like visual, hands-on learning, so after she baked, iced and labeled her cloud cake I hired my friend and illustrator, Brenda Ponnay, to create a few visuals for families to download and use as educational add-ons for this cake project, or even, in lieu of it.
Included in the Cloud Types download are the following full-page print-outs:
On this full-color print-out each cloud is set and labeled according to its height of cloud base: High-Level Clouds, which form above 20,000 feet; Mid-Level Clouds, which appear between 6500 to 20,000 feet; Low-level Clouds, which generally lie below 6500 feet; and finally, Vertically Developed Clouds, which can grow to heights in excess of 39,000 feet.
This page is in black and white (more ink-friendly), includes the exact same information as the full-color print-out above.
This page is also in black and white, but excludes the cloud names so it can be used as a review or to test knowledge.
Want to work on a bigger scale? Create a lap book? Study the clouds independent of each other? Also available are the individual clouds, labeled and in full color.
[Download the ENTIRE Cloud Type Print-outs Here for FREE!]
Looking for more information about clouds to kick off your own cloud study? Check out the following sites:
» WeatherWizKids
» Web Weather for Kids
» Weather World: Cloud Types
» Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology: Cloud Types and Precipitation
Now it’s time for you to go, bake a cloud cake, read, research, color and label, or whatever else you want to do to expand your knowledge of clouds and how they affect our weather!
Heather Sanders is a leading homeschooling journalist who inspires homeschooling families across the nation. Married to Jeff, Heather lives in the East Texas Piney Woods and homeschools her three children, Emelie, Meredith and Kenny.