Let’s Make Rain: A Pre-writing Activity for Preschool

Try this rain painting craft with your preschool child. The down strokes provide practice for developing good writing habits.

Children are naturally curious about the changes in weather. My preschooler was staring out the car window this afternoon with a million questions about the cloud.  Why are there clouds in the sky? How do they get there? Why do they move? And how can they make rain?

This rain painting craft project uses this interest in weather.

Let’s Make Rain is a fun and easy activity to do with your weather unit that is great for early writing.

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Rain Painting Craft : A Pre-writing Activity for Preschool

Objective: Strengthen fine motor muscles and practice downward writing strokes with a crayon.

Materials Needed for Rain Painting Craft

• White paper
• White crayon
• Watercolor Paints
• Paint Brush
• Paint cup of water

I don’t know what I would do without my paint cups!

Lesson Plan for How to Make Rain with Preschoolers

1. Read a story about rain.

• Down Comes the Rain
• Rain
• Little Cloud

2. Discuss the story and how rain is formed. (Water Cycle)

3. Encourage the preschooler to make rain using short downward strokes with the crayon. The more strokes, the more rain there will be.  We made up our own song to sing while making our raindrops.

The rain falls down, down, down.
Down, down, down.
The rain falls down, down, down.
Onto the ground.

4. Then, dip the paintbrush into the water and paint over the raindrops with a cool color: blues or purples work best.

5. Let dry and display.

*If the child pushes too lightly with the crayon, it will not resist the water color paint.

Plan Your Weather Themed Learning Week:

• Preschool Songs: I’m a Cloud
• How Hard has it Rained? A Preschool Science Investigation
• Weather Sensory Bin
• Create Your Own Clouds with Preschoolers
• Simple Evaporation ExperimentExplore Clouds and Rain for Fine Motor Practice
• Make a Pinwheel Weathervane for Preschool Wind Watching
  

  Watch this quick video for a preview of the activities pictured:

You may also like these activities for developing fine motor and hand-eye coordination as well:

• Fine Motor Activities for Vision and Hand-Eye Coordination
• Trace, Match, Write
• Make a Shape Scarecrow
• Alphabet Sensory Bin