Rainy Days

Sooooooo, it’s April and we got a tiny bit of snow yesterday.  I really was hoping that it would be warm enough to rain on the day when we did our rainy day storytime, but no.  Oh well, we had a good time making rain in the storytime room.

BOOKS:

Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain by Verna Aardema (pictures by Beatriz Vidal) and Rain Romp by Jane Kurtz (pictures by Dyanna Wolcott)

Bringing the Rain was fun, but it got a little long for even my preschoolers.  I really like Rain Romp.  My best friend’s mom wrote it and it reminds me of her and of my friend and their house.  Of the two, it was the preferred story.  If I do rainy days again though, I think I’d scrap both books and pick something else.  

FINGERPLAY:

We made rain sounds in the storytime room after we listened to our stories.  We snapped our fingers (mostly moms), rubbed our hands together, tapped our thighs, clapped our hands and stomped our feet!  Then the rain started dying down and we did the sequence in reverse.  I think this could be supplemented well with a rain stick and maybe even some cookie sheets to make thunder.  

CRAFT:

We made some water-diffused art, inspired by the art in Rain Romp.  This is the EASIEST, COOLEST craft.  Kids really like it.  It’s cheap.  It’s super easy to set up.  I had coffee filters and plain white paper, washable markers, and a spray bottle filled with water.  That’s it.  The kids color on the coffee filters (with the white paper underneath so the markers don’t go through to the table) and then I come around and spray them and the kids watch the colors diffuse.  This was a great craft for scribblers too – or kids who don’t quite have the hang of all their fine motor skills.  The coffee filters with the wildest lines ended up looking awesome in the end.  Plus, the color soaked through to the white paper so everyone went home with 2 pieces of art.