Where does a puddle disappear to?

After the rain, a puddle sits on the path outside. You jump in with your boots. Splish, splash! Can you remember how cold and wet the water feels on your legs?

Later you come back to splash again. But the puddle is gone, and the path is dry. So where does a puddle disappear to?

A puddle is made of water. And water is made of tiny bits, far too small to see one by one. Many of them together make the whole puddle.

When the rain stops, the sun comes out and shines on the puddle. Its warm light heats the water. It feels like a sunny window warming your hand.

Warm water bits wiggle and jiggle faster. Some bits at the top jiggle so hard that they jump right out of the puddle. Where do you think they go next?

They float up into the air! Each bit floats away on its own, so it is invisible, which means too small for your eyes to see. That is why you never see the water leave.

The sun keeps shining, and more bits jump out, one after another. Little by little, the puddle gets smaller. Its wet edges shrink toward the middle.

At last, the final bits float away too. Now all the puddle water is up in the air, invisible all around you. The path is dry, and you can walk there again.

Let's remember one word: invisible. The sun warms the puddle, and its water floats into the air in invisible bits.

Next time you spot a puddle shrinking in the sunshine, you will know just where its water is going.