We've been talking about weather a lot lately because the temperatures have been swinging from being cold (cold for California... 40s :)) to warmer Spring temperatures (80s+). Since we are basically living in our car these days and roaming from park to park starting at 8am while our house gets worked on... it is kind of critical to know a bit about the weather and how to dress.
My toddler has also been interested in rain and rain clouds, so I decided to take that interest and use it to help us work on our numbers. We created some simple Rain Drop Math activities using materials we had around the house.
Supplies: White and blue foam, scissors, Melissa & Doug Alphabet and Numbers Stickers, paper, and pen.
I started off this activity by cutting clouds out of white foam and ten blue raindrops from the blue foam. I made only two clouds because we used stickers that could easily be removed and added... so we didn't need a whole set of 10.
Next we chose a sticker from the number sticker book (0-10) and added it to the center of the rain cloud.
Once the sticker was on the cloud, my toddler tried to count out that same number of foam rain drops and put them underneath the cloud.
We also drew the number of raindrops on a piece of paper, so if she couldn't make rain drops for a certain number, she could use the raindrop piece of paper to help her. She would just cover the randrops on the paper with her blue foam raindrops and then help count them up and make sure she had the right amount!
For my five year old we put a number on each cloud and had him add the two numbers together. Once he did the addition problem correctly he got to add the correct number of raindrops underneath the rain cloud.
The hands-on portion of this activity that got the kids counting with their fingers and touching things really kept them engaged and having a good time!
Although counting anything correctly past #3 was hard for my toddler, it was great to give her exposure to numbers and watch in action as the numbers were used in realtime.
Have you played with numbers in a fun way before? What about rain clouds? Have you ever used them to help with learning?
If you missed it, yesterday we shared this Number Bug Sticky Wall activity.
Pre-Kinders also does a super fun raindrop counting activity that we love.
I also love this FREE raindrop math dice activity.
Come share any other favorite raindrop or number activities here or on our Facebook page.
We love tying activities to children's books, so if you have time, check out our favorite weather books!
Weather Words and What They Mean by Gail Gibbons
Little Cloud by Eric Carle
The Cloud Book by Tomie dePaola
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