Let It Rain

Discover the Amazing Water Cycle God Designed

Materials (per person)

Note: Each child will want to do this experiment on her own. Decide if you want to do this in groups or individually and plan accordingly. This is written for a per-person experiment.

• Transparent plastic cups (if each child is doing it) or glass canning jar (if doing as an adult-led demo)
• Pitcher of water
• Shaving foam
• Blue food coloring dropper (add a variety of colors for more fun)
• Optional: paint shirts
• World Map
• Babel Legend cards (download below), 1 per child

Class Time Directions

At The Incredible Race, we’re exploring God’s love for the nations. Jesus is calling people from every tribe and nation to believe in him for eternal life. And he wants his children to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every nation! The continent we are learning about today is South America.

Point to the world map and the countries as you list them, or have kids find them on the map as you list them. There are 12 countries in the continent of South America: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Over 425 million people live there. And according to the Joshua Project, there are still people groups who live in South America who have not heard the good news of Jesus Christ who came to earth, died on the cross, and rose from the grave to pay the penalty for our sins. There are about 60 people groups with 600,000 people who do not know about the one true God. These are precious image bearers of the Creator who need to know about God’s love for them. According to the Bible, we are blessed when we take the good news of salvation to those who haven’t heard. Read Isaiah 52:7. Do you think that you might someday be able to share the gospel with people groups in South America? We can start doing that today with our friends and neighbors who may not have heard about Jesus before.

Some of those unreached people groups in South America live deep in the Amazon rainforest. The Amazon rainforest is the largest rainforest in the world. Point to the map and show its coverage area over several countries. Since it’s called a rainforest, what do you think happens there a lot? Wait for answers. Yes, it rains! This area receives between 60 and 120 inches of rainfall every year. Compare that to our area, which receives ___ (fill in rainfall totals for your area). We are going to have fun making it “rain” in this jar!

Give each person a paint shirt if using them and a transparent plastic cup. Carefully fill the cup 3/4 of the way with water. Students can add shaving foam on top of the water, filling the jar the rest of the way. Students can use the food coloring droppers (or pipettes) to drip food coloring on the foam, one drop at a time. Before they begin, have them estimate how many drops it will take before the food coloring will move into the water. Then, have them count how many drops it takes until the food coloring goes through the foam and into the water. They can start with blue (to symbolize rain) and then add other colors for fun.

The Amazon area is very warm. The warmth causes water to evaporate from streams and from the leaves of plants and trees. The water evaporates into the sky, where it is cooled and forms clouds. When the clouds are saturated (filled) with moisture, the moisture falls out as rain. This is the water cycle, which God designed to help provide us with water to drink and as water for the plants.

Pass out the Babel Legend cards at the end of each day’s rotation, 1 per child.

Tip Corner

• Provide food coloring droppers or mix the food coloring in a bowl of water and allow children to use pipettes to drop the colored water onto the foam.