If you’ve ever watched the clouds in the sky, you know how different they can look from day to day. When they’re fluffy like cotton or thin and wispy and white, it can be hard to remember that that’s actually ice and water floating above your head.  How come it doesn’t fall?

Well, it eventually does.  When water vapor rises from the ground, it rises as incredibly tiny droplets of water, and some form tiny ice crystals.  When enough of those tiny pieces come together, they form a cloud.  We’re talking about millions of droplets here, but they’re so tiny and light that they can float on the wind.  If more and more droplets get pushed together, though, they eventually get so heavy that they can’t float anymore, and fall to earth as rain.  Like us, clouds can’t fight gravity forever.

Wee ones (counting on fingers): If you count 2 fluffy clouds floating over your front yard and 7 clouds floating over your backyard, how many clouds do you see?

Little kids: Different kinds of clouds form at different heights above us.  Cirrus clouds, the thin wispy horse-tail ones, start about 19,000 feet above the ground.  Heavy cumulonimbus clouds – the ones with thunder and rain – have a base just 6,000 feet up at most.  How much higher do the wispy cirrus clouds start?  Bonus: Clouds travel at different wind speeds, too: those sluggish thunderclouds move around 30 miles an hour, while the cirrus clouds can be pushed at up to 100 miles an hour.  At those speeds, how much faster are the cirrus clouds?

Big kids: Rain can fall anywhere from 7 to 18 miles per hour.  If it’s falling just 10 miles per hour, and the rainclouds are just 1 mile up from the ground, how long does it take the rain to fall from the cloud to you? (Remember: there are 60 minutes in an hour).  Bonus: What if the rain is falling at 12 miles an hour – now how fast does the rain reach you?

Answers:

Wee ones: 9 clouds.

Little kids: 13,000 feet higher.  Bonus: 70 miles an hour faster.

Big kids: 6 minutes.  Bonus: 5 minutes.

Easter is around the corner, and that means it’s egg hunt season.  You might be looking for real eggs that were dyed, but obviously you’d rather find the plastic ones that split in half and have cool toys and candy and stuff inside them.

No matter what’s inside the eggs, the search can be just as exciting – depending on where they’re hidden.

Wee ones (counting on fingers): In the town egg hunt, you find 3 eggs on the roof of the firehouse.  Then you slide down the pole and find 2 more at the bottom.  Then you climb up the ladder and find 2 more on the fire truck.  How many eggs do you find?

Little kids: You climb up the library flagpole and find 13 eggs.  You then grab a skateboard and zoom down to Town Hall, where you find 15 eggs in the fountain.  How many eggs in total do you find?  Bonus: If 9 of them have stickers inside, and the rest each have a mini chocolate bunny, how many bunnies do you win?

Big kids: At the zoo, there are 12 eggs in the lion’s cage, and 4 times as many in the alligator pond.  You decide to take your chances with the alligator.  How many eggs will you find there?  Bonus: Now you make a mad dash into the lion cage and grab those eggs also.  If 1/4 of all your eggs have a pair of glow-in-the-dark shoelaces inside, how many pairs of shoelaces do you win?

Answers:
Wee ones: 7 eggs.

Little kids: 28 eggs.  Bonus: 19 chocolate bunnies.

Big kids: 48 eggs with the alligator.  Bonus: 15 pairs of shoelaces, since there are now 60 eggs in total.  And they glow in the dark – totally worth risking your life for.

Friday’s Statue of Liberty BMP turned up some other cool number facts about her.  For instance, the Statue’s feet are 25 feet long, and she wears a size 879 sandal!  That means if you’re 4 feet tall, you’re about the length of her big toe, and if you’re only 3 feet tall, you’re her pinky toe.

So what would it be like if she walked up your street?

Wee ones: If the Statue’s foot is 25 feet long, and your car is 15 feet long, which one is longer?

Little kids: If she wore sneakers instead of sandals, and a shoelace is 2 times as long as its shoe, how long would the Lady’s laces be?  Bonus: If you need 10 bottles of nail polish to paint her big toenail, and 5 bottles for each of the smaller toes, how many bottles to paint all 10 toes? (Hint: try counting by 5’s.)

Big kids: Standard kids’ beds are about 6 feet long.  What’s longer, 3 of your bed end to end, or the Statue’s foot?  Bonus: If you and your family all lay down end to end in a straight line, would you be longer or shorter than her foot?

Answers:

Wee ones: The Statue’s foot is longer, by a whole 10 feet (the 12-inch kind).

Little kids: Each lace would be 50 feet long.  Bonus: 60 bottles of nail polish (2 sets of 10 for the big toes, and 8 sets of 5 to cover the rest).

Big kids: 3 of your bed makes 18 feet.  Her foot could squash 4 beds!  Bonus: Whether you round off in feet or add up the inches, your family could come close…2 adults together are about 11 feet, so if each kid is 3-4 feet tall, if you have 4 kids you might make it!