3 INTERACTIVE Books & Crafts to Teach Weather in Pre-K
Rain, clouds, wind, sun, snow, and storms. Weather is a great thematic unit to use to introduce science throughout the year in Pre-K, but my personal favorite is to teach it during springtime. Make it interactive and fun with these three books and crafts!
- Rain Drop Activity with Little Raindrop by Igloo Books
- Umbrella Writing Activity with The Big Umbrella by Amy June Bates
- Cloud Smoosh Activity with Little Cloud by Eric Carle or It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles G. Shaw
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Rain Drop Activity
This rain drop activity is perfectly paired with Little Raindrop by Igloo Books. This book teaches the water cycle by telling a story about a raindrop’s fun adventure.
How many drops does it take to make a cloud rain? Beyond teaching the science involved in the water cycle, use this activity to target introductory inferencing and graphing skills. Take a poll of how many drops students think the clouds will need then graph the results before getting to work! As your little learners squeeze the dropper, their little fingers and hands will be working on refining fine motor skills too!
How to
Glue cotton balls to the top of a piece of paper, then fill up a dropper of blue water. Use Discount School Supply’s liquid watercolor or watered down food coloring to keep things easy.
Grab these droppers from Learning Resources and count how many drops it takes for the cloud to start raining. (They’re my favorite for little hands!)
Pro tip: Be flexible and count “squeezes” as “drops” with your little ones as they work through this tricky fine motor skill.
Umbrella Writing Craft
This umbrella writing craft pairs with the book Big Umbrella by Amy June Bates. This book is about a big red umbrella that grows bigger and bigger to fit all kinds of people and animals under it to keep them dry from the rain.
Each page in this craft includes the number of sets and colored pages you need, so it’s a super easy print-and-go!
Target vocabulary, sequencing, and inferencing skills with this hands-on craft. Differentiate the writing part of this activity by using highlighters for easy tracing or encourage independent writing for more advanced learners.
It’s the perfect activity for a day of April showers!
Cloud Smoosh Painting Activity
This Cloud Smoosh painting activity is a Pinterest classic!
Pair it with Little Cloud by Eric Carle or It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles G. Shaw (or both!). These books will encourage your Pre-K class to imagine different animals or things that clouds look like in the sky.
How to
- Fold a piece of paper in half
- Dribble some white paint in the middle
- Fold the paper in half
- Smoosh the paint all around
- Open back up and let dry
Once dry, let your littles practice imagination skills as they share what their cloud looks like. Expand speaking skills by encouraging students to tell the large group of their classmates what they’ve created and listening skills while waiting to hear what others have to say.
To finish the craft, either draw on top of the cloud or write about it (or both!)
More Weather Ideas for Pre-K Science
Make scientific observations
Go outside and observe the weather in action!
Sink or Float STEM experiment
Set up this easy STEM experiment to determine what objects sink or float.
Play
Pretend to be meteorologists or dress up in different types of weather gear.
Think– raincoats, snow boots, sun hats, mittens, etc!
Compare and contrast
Talk about different feelings and activities one might experience in different types of weather. Make a chart digitally on your smart board or hands-on with large white paper.
Practice patterns
Using this fun raindrop bead activity, practice stringing beads in simple AB patterns onto pipe cleaners to strengthen math skills.
Use sensory bins to teach weather in pre-K
Create different sensory bins to represent various types of weather.
Find more weather resources
Check out other weather resources in my TPT store.
You can have the best time teaching weather to your preschoolers using these interactive activities this year!
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