Rain-Themed Preschool Activities

We live in a state where it seems like we hardly get rain (it's either really sunny or snowing), so I took advantage of a rainy day to put together an impromptu rain theme for our Homeschool Preschool.  I'm surprised that I was able to come up with so many creative activities without any preparation, and the kids had a lot of fun.  Here are some of the things we did:



Color By Number

I made the girls some rain-themed color by number pictures (I'm not much of an artist, but I'm really happy with how they turned out).  L sounded out all the colors, identified the numbers, and then colored the corresponding section very carefully.  At first E was not interested and played with her other toys while I worked with L, but soon she came over to see what we were doing and wanted to do her own color-by-number as well (which she did an excellent job on).

Stories, Music, and Creative Movement

I was in luck that girls' current Kindermusik class is a unit on weather.  We had almost a dozen songs about rain and thunderstorms to listen, play instruments, and dance to. Percussion instruments were a lot of fun to use to make sounds of rain and thunder.  The girls enjoyed tapping their fingers on aluminum foil like raindrops falling on a tin roof:

We even made our own rain shakers by carefully scooping rice into empty vitamin containers:

Dramatic Play

 The Kindermusik unit also came with a little sticker activity where the girls could build a rainy day scene:

They played with this set on their own a long time while I got some things done around the house. 

We did a lot of dramatic play - pretending we were raindrops, pretending to put on our rain gear, etc..  My favorite activity of the day was using paper bags for boots and jumping and splashing in 'rain puddles':

It was a blast!

Science

While I was making hard-boiled eggs, I invited the girls to observe the water evaporate into steam.  Then I held an ice tray above the boiling water so the steam will form condensation.  The condensation never built up enough to make it 'rain' back into the pot, but the girls could feel the moisture building up on the bottom of the ice cube tray, and understood the underlying concept:

Reading

When E asked to read some words (yes!), I decided to use some of the words that were in a story we had read earlier about a mouse with leaks in his house: Drip, Drop, Plip, and Plop.  Both girls did a good job sounding out the letters and (with a little help) blending them.  They thought these words were really funny and had a great time (yes!). 

Of course today it's back to being sunny, so I'm glad I jumped on the opportunity for a rain-themed lesson plan on one of our few rainy days.  In another month (or less), I'm sure we'll be learning all about snow...


Linking to Tot School at 1+1+1=1 .