Here is just one way to bring weather concepts to life in your classroom!
In our morning greeting, the weather helper informed us that today’s weather was definitely going to be cold and rainy. It was a perfect day to explore raindrops and clouds at our rain making station.
Here’s a tip… Let them play in the rain!
Setting Up the Rain Station
As an extension of our discussions on Who Cares about the Weather?, we added a rain station to one of our tables. To set up our rain making station, I put cotton balls in one container and labeled it “clouds” and blue water in the second container and labeled it “rain.” The center naturally invited the children to use the cotton ball clouds to absorb the blue rain water and then squeeze the rain out of the clouds and back into the tub.
Building Fine Motor Skills
The children went right to work using our wooden tongs or their hands to pick up cotton ball clouds and soaking them in our blue rain water.
Expanding Weather Vocabulary
As the children explored the clouds and rainwater, we would stop by and talk with them about the words that were on the containers “rain” and “clouds” and promote discussion about how the children were using the cotton balls like “clouds” to absorb water and making their own rain as they squeeze all the water back out of the clouds.
Exploring Cause and Effect
The children came and went from the rain-making station all morning.
Enjoying the Sensory Experience
Sometimes we would have a large group gathered around having fun talking and laughing together and other times we would just have one or two children concentrating on the rain making experience.
Why we Love the Rain Making Station
This was such a simple process to put together and yet it was highly engaging and opened the door to great conversations about clouds and rain. The children used their fine motor skills to manipulate the clouds and squeeze the water and in the process, enjoyed the soothing experience of water play.
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