Why are clouds so big?

By Friday I've generally lost all my oomph for the week and a day of good intentions turns into lazy parenting, screen time and impatient mum. Its been pushing the guilt button for a month or so now, so I decided to listen to what my inner voice was telling me.

Today when my 4yr old asked one of his tricky questions 'Why is the cloud so big?' instead of fobbing him off with the quickest answer I could summon, I decided to drop everything and follow his lead.

A conversation about clouds turned into thunderstorms and lightning, some youtube videos helped us learn how lightning worked and we looked at some pictures of how beautiful lightning looked and listened to the noises it makes. I wanted to find a way to extend his experience I dug around in my memory banks for a favourite childhood activity and we started some wet on wet watercolours using candles as a dye resist. Before starting we wiggled the paper so that it made noises like thunder and lightning.

From a lightning filled sky we started talking about stars, and galaxies and moons. We started another page, and after showing him how to use salt to add texture to the paints he got excited and we emptied the pantry for other things that absorbed moisture. Our paper became a textural exploration in time and space (corny I know)

The whole time we created we talked, he asked questions, I could only answer half of them, but we had fun, so much fun. Learning this way is magical.

Here are the fruits of our labour.

Candle wax acts as a resist for the dye, magical pictures appear out of nowhere.

Sago, semolina, tapioca, citric acid and salt.

Fun with textures!

Salt creates a lovely speckled texture

Rice grains absorb the moisture and create swirly patterns in the paint.

We learned about red dwarf stars, he wanted to know why the stars were different colours and not just white. I muttered something about light and gases...

Looks a little bit about the pleiades