Why are there puddles when I wake up?

Picture a fresh morning. You pull on your boots and step outside. Splash! Can you feel the cold water wobble around your boot?

Yesterday, the garden path was dry. Now there are puddles by the swing and near the gate. Why are there puddles when you wake up?

While you sleep, big gray clouds float over your house. These clouds are full of tiny drops of water. Each drop is so small that it floats in the air.

Inside the cloud, the tiny drops bump together and join up. Each drop grows bigger and heavier. Soon a drop is too heavy to float.

Down it falls, with lots of other drops. Pitter, patter, the rain taps on your roof all night. You are fast asleep, so you never see it.

The rain lands on the grass, the dirt and the sidewalk. The soft dirt soaks up some water, like a sponge. The hard sidewalk cannot soak up any at all. Where do you think the extra water goes?

The extra water runs along the ground to lower places. It moves like a ball rolling down a slide. It stops at a dip, which means a low spot in the ground. The water cannot climb back out, and there it stays.

Drop after drop runs into the dip. The water gets deeper and deeper. Now the dip holds a little pond of rainwater, and that is a puddle!

Before morning comes, the clouds drift away and the rain stops. Every dip in the garden still holds its puddle. One waits by the swing, and one waits near the gate.

While you slept, the clouds dropped rain on the ground. The rain ran into every dip and stayed there as a puddle.

Now the morning light shines over the quiet garden. By the swing, a round puddle sits in its little dip, calm and shiny.