What would be a good Project involving rain, for preschool age children?

Question

I need ideas for activities involving rain, for the preschool I work at, because we have a "rain/environment" week coming up.

=) thanks.

Answer 1

1)   You could make rainsticks with mailing tubes, rice, and rocks.  If they are a mature pre-k class, you may be able to hammer nails into the side of the tube for the rice to "trickle" down. they will enjoy painting the outside of the tube and decorating it with misc. materials.  you can even go online and type in rain stick kit, and buy kits for the kids. (the former choice is better for the pocket).

2)   You could talk about evaporation and do something with steam and seran wrap to collect the moisture.

3)  You could make "rain collectors", or cups with lines to measure the amount of water collected, then let the children use a hose, point it up in the air and watch their cups fill up.  This would work best if you could use a special gardening nosel that had different types of spraying, such as mist, jet, shower, etc...  Let me know if any of the ideas work out.  Teachers love to hear what works, and what doesn't. =)

Answer 2

how about rainbows?

Put a dab of red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple on a sheet of paper and the child takes a piece of waxed paper and puts it on top and smears it all around - it's beautiful - we call it rainbow blends

Answer 3

Collect in the water sump tank through a filter!

Answer 4

Instead of "Duck, Duck, Goose"...

PLAY "DRIP, DRIP, DROP'!

Insead of "Simon Says"...

PLAY THE "WEATHERMAN SAYS"!

Eyedropper Painting: Color water with food Children use eyedroppers to drop the colored water onto their white construction paper.

Rainbow Yarn Collage: Using rainbow shaped paper and rainbow colored yarn...

Art & Music: Provide gray, black, and white paint ..... Play rain sounds or a thunderstorm...Have children listen to the rainstorm and paint to it. Ask the children how the music makes them feel.(This could also be done as a giant group mural) Or...put out cotton for clouds and tinted rice and have the children go from there...

Add rain coats, hats, umbrellas,  rain boots, and a CD/tape containing rain sounds to the DRAMATIC PLAY AREA.

Tasting Water: Provide tap water, soda water, mineral water, and distilled water. Pour the different types of water into paper cups and have children taste them. Discuss the differences. As an extension you can do a survey/graph

Sing, recite, and finger play "Rain themed" poems/songs; Draw pictures to go with them. (See below website)

MAKE IT RAIN!

Need:

Glass mayonnaise or canning jar, plate, hot water, ice cubes,

Pour about two inches of very hot water into the glass jar.

Cover the jar with the plate and wait a few minutes before you start the next step.

Put the ice cubes on the plate.

What happens? The cold plate causes the moisture in the warm air, which is inside the jar to condense and form water droplets. This is the same thing that happens in the atmosphere. Warm, moist air rises and meets colder air high in the atmosphere. The water vapor condenses and forms precipitation that falls to the ground.

ORANGE UMBRELLA SNACKS

Slice an orange into 1/4" thick round slices. Cut each round slice in half ------to form a half round umbrella shape. Have each child choose an "umbrella handle" from thin sliced cheese, pretzel sticks, thin celery sticks, or thin apple slices.

MAKE A RAINBOW SNACK  from strawberries, blueberries, oranges, green apples, etc.

Answer 5

To figure out how many punds of water falls on teh earth every yeAr.

Answer 6

Well you could pretend it's raining and let children bring in activities that they like to do on rainy days such as board games or books.