the water cycle is like a life cycle for water. it involves collected water, such as in an ocean, evaporating. also, water evaporates out of plants into the air through stomata. this is called transpiration. the water in the air is gas, now called water vapour. because the sky gets colder as you go up, the water vapour cools to the dew point and condenses, returning to a liquid state. The condensed water forms fall. This is called precipitation. When the precipitation hits the ground, it can do one of two things. It can infiltrate, or be absorbed into the ground. Or it can become runoff, which is the moving water after a rainfall. Then the runoff can join a river to be a part of a collected body of water, which starts the water cycle over again.
thanks, hope this opened up some insight.