Once upon a time, high above our heads, lived a little family of Water Sprites. They weren’t like the sprites in your storybooks, with sparkly wings and pointy hats. Oh no! These water sprites were teeny tiny, almost invisible, and they loved to play hide-and-seek amongst the sunbeams. Their home was a giant, shimmering ocean floating up in the sky – we call it the sky-ocean!

Mama Sprite and Papa Sprite had three little sprite children: Pip, Squeak, and Ripple. They spent their days playing the most wonderfully wet games. They’d zoom down sunbeams, giggling as they tickled each other with raindrops. They'd build tiny, sparkling castles out of dewdrop bricks, and they'd race each other on miniature lily pads made of fluffy white clouds.

Now, these fluffy white clouds weren't just pretty decorations. They were actually giant, bouncy rafts made of millions and millions of tiny water droplets, all held together by the magic of the sky-ocean. Each droplet was like a tiny, shimmering water sprite itself, but much, much smaller than Pip, Squeak, and Ripple.

One sunny morning, Mama Sprite decided to teach her little ones about the sky-ocean and how clouds are made. "My little water sprites," she said, her voice as gentle as a summer breeze, "the sky-ocean is always moving, just like the ocean down below! The sun, our big, warm friend, helps to heat the sky-ocean."

She pointed towards a sparkling part of the sky-ocean. "See those parts that are shimmering extra brightly? That's where the sun is warming the water droplets the most. When the sun warms the water, it turns it into a special kind of gas, called water vapor. This water vapor is invisible, you can't see it. It's like magic!"

Pip, Squeak, and Ripple looked up, their eyes wide with wonder. They wiggled their little sprite bodies, excited to learn something new.

"This water vapor rises up, up, up," Mama Sprite continued, "just like hot air balloons float into the sky! As it rises, it gets cooler and cooler. Remember how we like to play in the cool shade under the big leaves? It's the same for the water vapor."

"When the water vapor gets really, really cold, it turns back into tiny water droplets again," Mama Sprite explained. "And because there are so many of them, they all clump together, like tiny little friends holding hands. That's how clouds are made!"

"So, clouds are just lots and lots of tiny water droplets holding hands?" Squeak asked, his voice a tiny ripple in the air.

"Exactly!" Mama Sprite beamed. "And the different types of clouds – fluffy, puffy ones, flat grey ones, tall, feathery ones – they're all made from those tiny droplets, but they clump together in different ways, depending on how cold it is and how much water vapor there is."

Papa Sprite, who had been watching from a nearby sunbeam, chuckled. "Sometimes, those tiny droplets get so close together that they get heavy. They can't stay up in the air anymore, so they fall back down to the sky-ocean as rain!"

Ripple gasped. "So that's where rain comes from?"

"That's right," Mama Sprite said. "The clouds get full of water droplets, and when they're too full, they let the water droplets fall back down as rain, watering the plants and filling the rivers and lakes down below."

Pip, Squeak, and Ripple spent the rest of the day playing amongst the clouds, giggling as they bounced on the fluffy water droplet rafts. They learned that the clouds were not just pretty pictures in the sky, but were a magical part of the water cycle, a continuous journey of water droplets rising, clumping together, falling back down, and rising again. They understood that the sky wasn't just empty space, but a dynamic, ever-changing world full of wonder and tiny water sprites, working together to keep the world watered and beautiful. And every time they looked up at the sky, they saw the amazing work of the water sprites and their ever-changing sky-ocean filled with fluffy, bouncy clouds. And that’s why we see clouds in the sky, a magical show put on by tiny water droplets and the warm, sunny friend above!