All about clouds!

This week we have been learning all about rain, and this morning we talked about where rain comes from - clouds. We discussed whether it always rains when there are clouds and if there are always clouds when it rains. We worked out that rain comes from clouds so if it is raining, there must be clouds in the sky. But not all clouds bring rain - sometimes it's cloudy, but not rainy - like today!

We looked at pictures of different types of clouds and talked about them. We took it in turns to share our ideas about what the clouds looked like - we saw all sorts of shapes and patterns in them! What's interesting is how different people saw different things. Some of us saw camels, rabbits, birds, boats, squares, circles... all sorts of things!

We looked at fluffy clouds and wispy, stripy clouds. We looked at white clouds and dark clouds, which we said were "rainclouds" and "stormy clouds" because they were dark. We also looked at clouds that had some orange and pink in them. Some of us thought this was because the clouds were hot, but Lucy said it was "from the sun" and Grace said "it's when the sun is setting." We talked about 'sunset' and how it can make the sky - and the clouds - look red, orange, pink or even sometimes purple.

Then we explored different ways that we could make cloud pictures. We thought about the resources we would need for the type of cloud we wanted to show and which colours we would need. Some of us did white clouds, some did grey, stormy clouds - those people had to make grey paint by mixing black and white. Some people wanted to make sunset clouds, so they mixed up different shades of pink and orange to show clouds at sunset. Some people used paintbrushes, some people used sponges. We found that we could get lots of different effects from the sponge - you could press it down on your paper and lift it off, or you could wipe it across the paper, which made it look very different. Ruby found that if you touch the sponge lightly on the paper it looks different to when you press down harder. Grace had the idea of using a feather to try and create the wispy effect of the clouds and she tested it out with white paint. Great thinking Grace!



We also explored other ways of making cloud pictures. We used chalks and pastels and learnt how to blend the chalk with our fingers - this gave a really good effect on our cloud pictures. Some of us also used the computer to make cloud pictures using the Paint programme - we used the 'Fill' tool to make the background blue, then used the 'Spray' tool with the colour white to make clouds. Aaron also added a text box and wrote his name himself - well done Aaron!