Free Water and Water Cycle Resources
Last year we did a unit on water, the water cycle, and water pollution. A lot of the time I make our own science notebook pages, but there were so many wonderful resources already available, we used what we found online instead for this portion of our Weather and Water unit. I thought I would share some of these resources with you today.
Our main activity for this portion of our unit is using the Engineering is Elementary unit: Water, Water Everywhere, Designing Water Filters. It is a complete engineering unit put together by the Museum of Science. (Be sure to check out this earlier post about some of the free units offered by Engineering is Elementary.)
Even though the unit itself is quite complete, I am supplementing with some other free materials I’ve found online.
The USGS has a cute printable water cycle poster for kids:
Here are some cute pages that I used for ED: My Water Activity Book by SW Florida Water Management District
The USGS also has a terrific poster about the Water Cycle for older students:
South West Florida Water Management District also has a lot of free resources including this hydrologic cycle page and a water coloring sheet:
There are a number of wonderful water-related posters from the USGS that we printed out to use in our discussions. Below are the USGS Water Education Posters. We used the printable posters about Water Use, Ground Water and How we Treat Waste Water. They have a number of other posters as well (wetlands, watersheds, water quality, etc.)
In the Engineering Unit we are doing, we are learning about pollution and the kids will be creating their own water filters. The kids brain stormed some sources of pollution. Here is a printout about pollution that we used:
As well as the USGS poster about water quality:
Hope you found this list useful!
To go with your water cycle unit, you might want to check out these books. (These are affiliate links.) These are aimed at K-Gr. 3 (in my opinion):
Down Comes the Rain: This is a book we got years ago. It explains evaporation and how clouds form, why rain and hail form. The illustrations are bright. It was a mainstay in our homeschool until the kids were in about Grade 3.
Magic School Bus, Wet All Over: Our family also enjoyed the Magic School Bus science books. This one is about the water cycle.
Water is Water is another book aimed at K-Grade 1 or so. It is a basic introduction to the water cycle and the illustrations are really pretty!
A Drop Around the World: This is another poetic book that follows a water droplet all around the world… from Maine to Spain, Switzerland and on…
Our family read Bringing Rain to Kapiti Plain when we did this unit. We talked about the consequences of drought. This was a Reading Rainbow book and is highly rated. (By us too.) It is also for K-Grade 2 or so.
The Water Cycle is a good non-fiction book about the water cycle for grades 2-3.
P.S. At the beginning of our Ocean Unit, we studied the water cycle again. Don’t miss the notebook pages I made for the kids about the water cycle, divides and watersheds, underground water – aquifers, etc. You’ll find those worksheets here:
Water-Cycle-Divide-Watershed-Aquifer-Worksheets
Visit our other Weather-Related Unit Posts:
Earth Science:
After studying the water cycle, weather and meteorology, you might delve into Earth’s geology – the layers of the earth, plate tectonics, faults, earthquakes, volcanoes, etc. Be sure to check out our Earth Science Packet
- Earth Science Packet: This unit includes 150+ pages of worksheets, hands-on activity ideas, and more! My kids loved this unit!! 🙂 Topics in this unit are listed below.
Some of the topics we covered in our Earth Science Unit:
- the solar system
- layers of the Earth, Earth’s axis
- compass directions, compass rose, how to use a compass
- Earth’s geologic timeline
- equator, latitude, longitude — Using a globe to determine latitude and longitude
- Pangaea and continental drift
- understanding convection currents
- tectonic plates
- 4 types of mountains
- 3 types of faults
- earthquakes and faults
- volcanoes – volcanic terms, types of volcanoes
- earthquakes and building construction, earthquake shake table
here are a few pictures of what is included in the Earth Science Packet. You’ll find a link to purchase this 150+ page packet below.
Pictures and descriptions of our hands-on Earth Science Activities are included in the packet.
You may be interested in these posts:
- More of our hands-on Earth science activities
- Human Body Systems
- Simple Machines Packet
- Rocks and Minerals Packet
- Famous Rocks from Around the World: Free Montessori Cards
See you again soon here or over at our Homeschool Den Facebook Page! You might also want to check out some of our resources pages above (such as our Science, Language Arts, or History Units Resource Pages) which have links to dozens of posts. You might want to join our free Homeschool Den Chat Facebook group. Don’t forget to check out Our Store as well. 
Happy Homeschooling, everyone!! ~Liesl
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Disclosure: Please note that some of the links in this post are affiliate links, and at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase.
Very interested in all of these!
I’m glad they’ll help! Have fun with your unit! ~Liesl