April Showers / Rain Unit

Honey Pot is 3 1/2 years old.

Little M&M is 2 years old.

Books

We checked out some wonderful books from the library about rain this week! Honey Pot's favorites were Cloudette, Are You Ready to Play Outside and Rabbits & Raindrops. Little M&M loves One Rainy Day, as it has just a few words per page and reviews all of the colors he recently learned. Great selection of books!

Coffee Filter Umbrella Craft

We discovered this idea from B-Inspired Mama. Great activity to bring us outside on these early warm spring days. First we colored coffee filters with washable markers.

Then we sprayed them completely with water, and watched all of the colors spread throughout the coffee filter.

The kids aren't very keen on coloring activities, so theirs weren't very colorful. I made one too so we can see what it looks like fully decorated.

We sprayed them all, placed them inside on paper towels and allowed them to dry overnight.

Here they are the next morning, hung up with construction paper handles. Such a cute craft, and they love to come over and point theirs out.

Learning about The Water Cycle

I found a wonderful introduction to the water cycle over at Living Montessori Now, with a free printable from Our Little Monkeys. I cut a raindrop out of cardstock so she could have something to move around the page. I like this worksheet because it uses simple descriptions suitable for her age, rather than the big words that she can't even pronounce yet. I used the raindrop and explained the stages of the water cycle to her, then she wanted to do it herself. She did great, and I really think she understands the concept. She took this page back out multiple times throughout the week, explaining the water cycle to her Dad and even to her little brother.

Math Mazes

We printed two mazes out from This Reading Mama, for Honey Pot to practice her counting. She used a highlighter and made her way from 11 to 20...

and then from 10-100, counting by tens. This was a nice review, as she just recently learned how to count by tens during her Letter T unit. 

Which is Different?

We also printed this worksheet from This Reading Mama's free packet. There were two versions, a level one and a level two. This type of activity always seems too easy for Honey Pot now, so I printed level two. It was definitely a challenge for her!

Making Patterns

One last item from This Reading Mama's packet: pattern cards! We tried all different types of patterns. We started simple with an ABAB pattern.

Then moved on to AABAAB.

And finally, we added a third item to the mix with an ABCABC pattern. She loved this activity and returned to this throughout the week as well. 

Sticky Paper Rain Craft

Little M&M had fun reviewing shapes with this activity. I provided him with mini marshmallows and raindrops that I had drawn shapes onto.

I drew a cloud onto a piece of paper, as well as each of the shapes again, and taped the paper beneath some clear contact paper, sticky side out. Little M&M put the marshmallows into the cloud, and stuck the raindrops onto the matching shapes. We talked about what the shapes were called as he picked each one up. He really enjoyed this!

Rain Experiment

Growing a Jeweled Rose had nice instructions on how to make it rain in a cup using shaving cream, water, food coloring and a pipette.

I filled a clear glass 3/4 of the way with water, then topped it off with shaving cream.

Using a pipette and some water with blue food coloring, the kids took turns dropping some water into the shaving cream clouds. When the clouds became heavy with water, it rained in the cup!

Not only was this great fine motor practice, as they learned how to use the pipettes, but it put great emphasis on how rain forms, a concept that Honey Pot is just discovering. We did this experiment three times in a row. What a success!

Cloud Sensory Bin

I had seen this all over Pinterest, and wanted to give it a try. We placed a bar of Ivory Soap into the microwave for about ninety seconds, and watched it puff up like a cloud!

Then we took it out and played with it. It deflated quite quickly, but both of the kids enjoyed exploring its texture.

Honey Pot especially loved crumbling it into pieces!

Playing in the Rain

It's April, so I knew we would have at least one rainy day during our rain unit. We had a couple actually! The kids put on their boots and grabbed their umbrellas and splashed around. Great end to our week!

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If you enjoyed this, please take a look at our Cloud Unit too! Tons of fun activities for little ones!

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Clouds

Theme: Clouds

Honey Pot is 2 years and 1 month old

Little M&M is 3 months old

Books

We kicked off this week’s fun theme by gathering a few cloud books. We own one, and the other two we borrowed from the local library. These were left out in the living room and we read them often throughout the week.

Clouds, by Marion Dane Bauer

Little Cloud, by Eric Carle

It Looked Like Spilt Milk, by Charles D. Shaw

Blowing Clouds Across The Sky

I provided Honey Pot with a few cotton ball clouds, and we practiced blowing through straws, making them drift across the blue paper sky. I found the idea at a site I recently discovered called Preschool Express.

Cloud Crafts

I found these craft ideas from Blissfully Domestic. The blogger there used them in conjunction with It Looked Like Spilt Milk, as we did!

First, we used a clothespin to paint with clouds…

It was a lot of fun to turn it into a finger-painting. She dipped her hand in, fearlessly!

Then, I let Honey Pot squirt some glue onto another blue page.

We stuck cotton balls over the glue to make a cloud.

Then I asked her what she thought it looked like. She said a sheep, but I think it looks more like a reindeer! What do you think?

Cloud Gazing

Later we spread out a blanket outside and did some cloud gazing.

We spotted a dinosaur head…

A squirrel…

And a few others. But you know the attention span of a two-year-old. Honey Pot did about five minutes of cloud gazing…followed by about twenty minutes of crawling around on the deck saying, “I’m an ant!” and chasing one around. What a goofy goober.

Sky Jello

I discovered these on Pinterest, originating from a blog called Anastasia’s Palace. What a neat idea! First my little helper did some mixing…

Then I added the whipped cream clouds. Cute!

Honey Pot tasted her sky and cloud Jello. “Mmm, nummy!”

Cloud Dough

We also did a sensory bin this week, with a concoction called Cloud Dough. It is eight cups of flour plus 1 cup of baby oil. I halved the recipe, and I’m glad I did! Honey Pot had a BLAST with this mixture, but it all wound up out of the bin by the end of the afternoon! It feels much like plain flour, but is moldable! I don’t have too many fun gadgets, but I provided her with some old measuring spoons, cups and a small sifter.

Honey Pot had fun digging her hands into it.

“I need a bowl!” she insisted. So I ran inside and got a bowl too.

She poured, scooped and squished to her delight.

Then I helped her mold some of the dough. “Birthday cake!” she shouted.

And you know it’s a successful sensory bin when she puts her feet in it!

Even Little M&M got to experience the fun!

And then Honey Pot helped clean up the mess. Err, she ran across the deck with the broom in her hand. Whatever works!

Walking Across The Clouds

This is a last minute activity I wanted to add to this week’s theme. We had been using these stacks of printer paper to help Little M&M reach the floor while sitting in his Jumperoo. When he was done with them I spotted them on the floor and knew we had to make a game of it! So I printed out a few images of cloud clip-art, and numbered them from one to five to put a little educational spin on it.

Then we took turns walking across the clouds!

I spread them out a little bit for a challenge.

Scattered clouds...get it?

And here she is saying and pointing to the numbers as she walks across them.

It was a great balancing game!

And throughout the remainder of the day, every time I walked by them I would walk over them, saying the numbers as I stepped on them. We went from one to five and from five to one. It actually turned into quite a good number review - I wasn't expecting that!