It’s raining, it’s pouring…you might even hear the wind roaring! This fun weather preschool theme is a fantastic introduction to springtime and will perfectly complement your weather activities for preschool.
Here you’ll find loads of ideas for rain and clouds preschool activities, including book ideas, art and sensory exploration, and math and science fun. You’ll find the whole bundle of ideas at the end of this post in a free download of preschool lesson plans.
Free Weather Activities for Preschoolers Including Free Preschool Lesson Plans
A rain and clouds theme is such a soothing introduction to weather and the wonders of spring. Even as adults, we’re intrigued with passing clouds, always searching for shapes or animals…and we certainly love a snuggly, rainy day.
Preschoolers are so interested in the science behind rain and weather and always have endless questions. Here are some great resources to make your rain and clouds theme a success!
The Learn At Home Preschool Lesson Plans Bundle
This bundle of weekly preschool lesson plans is divided into 46+ themes including all the most popular preschool themes and holidays. These lesson plans are already free on the website, but for your convenience they have been bundled together here. These pdfs will make it a breeze to prepare each week’s learning activities for your preschoolers.
FAQ About a Rain and Clouds Preschool Theme
You may have a few questions about teaching this preschool theme! Many teachers ask how to teach weather to preschoolers. Check out these frequently asked questions for how to teach your preschoolers about rain and clouds.
Preschoolers are naturally inquisitive about the weather. After all, it affects them on a daily basis! That’s one of the reasons we include it in our circle time routine.
Teaching that rain brings life to all living things is fun and easy when you provide hands-on play, songs, and stories. Encourage weather themed science experiments that help preschoolers interact with different materials to see rain in action. Remember to go outside and experience the rain and/or clouds too!
A visual weather chart is ideal so that students can see and relate to the weather each day. Guide students in determining if it’s sunny, cloudy, rainy, windy, or snowy. Since the weather can be more than one of those elements on any given day, drawing pictures to record weather observations is a great way to cement learning.
Discuss the clothes and equipment you might need on a rainy day, such as an umbrella, rain jacket, or boots. Discuss other types of clothing for other types of weather, too!
Preschoolers often express fear during a thunderstorm or rainstorm. Invite your preschoolers to notice the color of the sky and the clouds. Encourage them to notice that thunderclouds are large, dark, and often puffy. This is nature’s way of giving Earth the rain and water it needs to grow.
Although the loud sounds might seem scary, it’s fun to imagine silly things happening in the sky. This is a great picture book that explains it to preschoolers. Perhaps someone is playing a round of bowling up in the clouds, or maybe dinosaurs are having a party with their friends. Encourage your preschoolers to come up with funny stories and their anxieties will magically fade away!
Important Info About These Rain and Clouds Lesson Plans
These lesson plans for preschoolers are just one theme in a set of over 40 that will become a part of my free Learn At Home Preschool Lesson Plans.
The Learn at Home Preschool Lesson Plans are free lesson plans you can use to teach your preschooler at home.
All the preschool learning activities are quick and easy to set up, designed to save time, requiring hardly any (if any at all) prep and only requires the most basic of household materials. This makes them especially easy for parents to implement…and this makes preschool teachers especially happy, too!
Just glance over the lessons each day, gather the very few materials needed, and you’re ready to go!
But don’t be fooled by the name “at home” preschool lesson plans! These activities work wonderfully in the classroom as well, and if you’re a preschool teacher who is remotely teaching you can send these lesson plans to your student’s parents.
Hands-On Preschool Activities for a Rain and Clouds Theme
Learning about rain and clouds is the most fun when you can incorporate play and learning together. Here are some popular hands-on activities to keep with your rain and clouds lesson plans to add to your weather preschool theme.
Literacy Activities for a Rain and Clouds Theme
Rain Cloud Beginning Sound Activity – Grab an empty tissue box and paint it white (optional); then cover it with cotton balls to make your rain cloud. Invite your preschooler to search the house for items to feed the rain cloud. Have your preschooler share their items with you and tell you what each item’s beginning sound is. Then feed the items to the rain cloud by placing them inside the tissue box.
Weather Trace, Color, and Write – Draw a series of weather icons on pieces of white printer paper (one per page) like a sun, rainbow, clouds, and lightning. Then write the name of each one on the bottom of the paper. Invite your preschooler to first trace the drawing, then color the drawing, and finally trace the name of the drawing on each page.
Don’t Forget Weather Theme Picture Books!
One of the best ways to teach preschoolers about any theme is by hand-selecting the highest-quality picture books! This is a book list for our best-loved picture books for a weather theme.
Math and Science Activities for a Rain and Clouds Theme
Rainy Day Counting Mats – These rainy day counting mats are perfect for practicing counting skills and can be used with playdough, counters, or even blue gems! Using ten frames is ideal for helping preschoolers learn to subitize and eventually “see” the numbers without physically counting.
Rain Cloud Number Tracing – Print this activity and pop it into a sheet protector for use over and over! It’s great for number recognition, formation, and one-to-one correspondence. Counting the raindrops is so fun! Encourage your pre-writers to use their fingers to trace the numbers and/or place beads or buttons along the tracing lines.
Shaving Cream Rain Cloud – Explore how a rain cloud works with this hands-on science experiment. Using shaving cream, blue food coloring, and a clear glass with water, your preschooler can watch how the rain makes its way through the cloud. For the full instructions and steps, check out this video.
Playful Learning Weather Activities for Preschoolers
“Puddle” Jumping – Head outside and draw some ”puddles” using blue or white chalk. Invite your preschooler to skip through them. Grab an umbrella and pretend that it’s raining! Hold the umbrella while skipping to engage those balance skills.
Rain on the Windows Art – Ever seen raindrops run down a window? That’s what this art activity is. Set out a piece of white paper on a tray or baking sheet. Gently add a few drops of watercolor along the top of the paper. Finally, gently lift the top of the tray off the table and watch the “raindrops” run down the paper.
Cloud Name Art – Write your preschooler’s name in large print on a piece of paper. Help trace their name in liquid glue. Invite your preschooler to glue white cotton balls/pom-poms over the letters to make their cloud name.
Social-Emotional Activities for a Rain and Clouds Theme
Finding the Positive in Every Situation – Go to YouTube and listen to the story I Don’t Like Rain by Sarah Dillard. After reading, chat with your preschooler about how all the animals changed their opinions. At the beginning of the story, they did NOT like the rain, but it soon became fun for them. Why did they change their minds? Tell your preschooler that it’s important to always look for joy. When something feels disappointing or not what you expected, try to think of how you can turn it around into something fun and awesome. Invite your preschooler to think of how they would like to play in the rain!
I Can Be a Rainbow in Someone Else’s Cloud – Encourage your preschooler to support and cheer up others using simple acts of kindness. Draw a cloud on a piece of white paper and then cut out strips of paper and invite your preschooler to color the paper in all colors of the rainbow. With help, write/draw ways that you can help someone special in your life. It can be as simple as putting away your toys, bringing your plate to the sink, or giving up an extra turn.
Just Plain Fun Weather Activities for Preschoolers
It Looked Like Spilt Milk – Go to YouTube and listen to the story It Looked like Spilt Milk by Charles G. Shaw. After listening, head outside on a cloudy day and find some clouds! What do you see in the clouds? Lie down with your preschooler in the shade and spend some time searching the sky.
Puffy Paint Clouds – Mix equal parts liquid white glue and shaving cream together in a bowl. Grab a big paintbrush and paint some fluffy clouds! This paint dries puffy so it’s great for tactile exploration, too. Mix in a drop of black paint to make storm clouds. This is great for an art activity after spending time outside on a cloudy day finding shapes and lines in the sky and “replicating” it on paper.
Cloud Writing – Grab some extra shaving cream and spray it onto a tray or plate. Write or draw letters, names, numbers, shapes, and images. Have some cloud fun! This fun activity is perfect for building fine-motor skills and pre-writing practice, plus it’s a blast for young kids!
Get Online Activities with a Rain and Cloud Theme
Online Story – Go to YouTube and listen to the story The Rain Came Down by David Shannon. After listening, discuss why everyone seemed to be so grumpy when it was raining. What happened when the rain stopped? What kind of day do you like best? Draw a picture of your best weather day!
Cloud Song – Use your imagination when you look to the sky! You’ll see all kinds of things in the clouds if you look carefully! Go back and read It Looked Like Spilt Milk for a great story connection!
What’s the Weather Today Song – Learn about all types of weather with this cute song. Sun, rain, wind, or snow, no matter the weather there is always plenty of fun to be had!
Get Your Free Rain and Clouds Lesson Plans Here
Want to include these rain and clouds activities in your weather lesson plans for preschool? Ready to grab your free printable lesson plans with all these weather theme activities for preschoolers?!
No problem. I’ve made a printable for you. Just fill out the form below and it will be sent to your inbox.
Make Your Weather Theme Even Better
Sometimes (not always), what turns a great preschool theme into an exceptional one is having some extra special materials specific to that theme. These are some of the weather toys and activity kits I like to use with my preschoolers.
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I’m Sarah, an educator turned stay-at-home-mama of five! I’m the owner and creator of Stay At Home Educator, a website about intentional teaching and purposeful learning in the early childhood years. I’ve taught a range of levels, from preschool to college and a little bit of everything in between. Right now my focus is teaching my children and running a preschool from my home. Credentials include: Bachelors in Art, Masters in Curriculum and Instruction.
