It is finally spring, which means it’s time for a weather theme! The weather is always changing and can be different from day to day in the spring. Grab your lesson plan book because I’m sharing all my favorite weather activities designed for preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten. There is even a Weather STEM FREEBIE later in this post!
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Weather Activities and Centers
Sky Cup Snack! This adorable snack is easy to make and would be a fun treat for your kids. Make blue Jello in clear cups for the sky, then place whipped cream on the top for clouds. Then sprinkle rainbow sour candies on top. Yum!
Weather Books! On the bookshelf, you can display tons of weather-themed books about clouds, wind, sun, rain, storms, flying kites, water, and snow. My favorite weather book has to be The Big Umbrella, which is about accepting and making room for everyone!
Cloud Writing! Fill a tray with shaving cream (use hair conditioner if you can’t use shaving cream) so students can write letters, numbers, shapes, sight words, or names in the clouds. It’s an easy way to make word work or handwriting FUN! Sprinkle in glitter to pretend it’s raining or snowing! Don’t want the mess? Put the shaving cream or hair conditioner in a baggie, and students can write all the things on the baggie with no mess.
Raindrop Letters and Sounds! Students match the uppercase, lowercase, and beginning sound cards. If you want to make raindrop manipulatives, just write letters on the top of blue glass gems with a Sharpie marker.
Rain Name Craft! My kiddos are loving name crafts right now. As a bonus, they make a super cute bulletin board. Students cut out the cloud and the raindrops for some fun scissor skill work. Then students write their names on the cloud and individual letters on the raindrops.
Rainbow Sight Words! Learning sight words can be fun with a rainbow twist. Students pick a sight word card and read the word, rainbow write it, and build it with the rainbow letter cards.
If you have younger students, have them read, write, and then build letters or student names.
Weather Writing Table! Pack the writing table with weather-themed word cards, stickers, tracing mats, and paper.
Tornado Rhymes! Fill a tray with black beans to create the “tornado.” Then, place half of the rhyme cards in it. Students pick a card and find the matching rhyme.
Rain Names Light Table! Practice names with this adorable rain cloud name light table activity. I wrote students’ names on blue tissue paper clouds and laminated them. I wanted to laminate the name clouds so I could use them with dry-erase markers on another day. Then, students used blue letter gems to spell the names
Weather Sensory Bin! Fill the table with blue rice, blue sequins, and blue gems (raindrops). Add clouds (cotton balls), rainbows (mini erasers or rainbow pom poms), rain (blue glass gems), lightning (yellow foam cut in the shape of lightning bolts), small scoops, and rainbow pill jars (from Dollar Tree).
Rainbow Play Dough Tray! This play dough tray is one of my favorites to date. Make or buy white play dough for clouds. Fill the tray with rainbow beads, rainbow buttons, rainbow pom poms, rainbow pipe cleaners, rainbow match sticks, and large glass gems. Students can sculpt and create rainbows so many different ways, all while strengthening those little fine motor muscles.
Cloud Count! Draw clouds on a large piece of butcher paper using India Ink in a bingo dauber or with a black marker. Students count out the corresponding number of cotton balls and place them on each cloud. Then students match the cloud numbers. To make cloud number gems, use the large glass gems from the Dollar Tree and write a number on each with a Sharpie for students to match as well. This would be perfect for a morning table time activity.
Gem Numbers! These numbers manipulatives are made with large glass gems. These are a favorite in my classroom for a winter, ice and snow, or polar animals theme. Or they sell different colors that will work for other themes! I love the gems because they can also be placed on the light table! Students can also place them in a sensory filler since they are easy to clean.
Cloud Shape Cover Up! To keep going with the cloud theme, play shape cloud cover-up for a small group.
Color Lace! Add pipe cleaners and beads to the bottom of a paper plate (umbrella). Students will thread the beads onto the matching pipe cleaner. This is great for fine motor muscles and hand-eye coordination!
Weather Forecast Count! Students can pretend to be a meteorologist and create weather forecasts. Students pick a card and create the weather based on the forecast. If counting is too simple for your kiddos, have them pick two cards to add together and use the addition weather forecast math (not pictured).
Sunshine Patterns! Cut up some pipe cleaners to make sunshine patterns. Sometimes, it’s the simplest activity that gets students excited! This activity is simple yet fun and educational.
Addition Game! Write addition problems and have your students make chains to solve them. You can also do this activity with beads and tape pipe cleaners to the plate instead. This is a higher-level paper plate activity for your older students.
Raindrop Roll and Count! This roll and count game is so much fun and very simple to create! Draw a cloud and give students a die and dot markers. Young children roll the die and put that many raindrops on the paper to practice one-to-one correspondence. To make it harder, give students two dice and have them practice addition.
Wind Blowing Painting! If you look closely, you will see that students drew the wind by making curvy, swirly lines with a black Sharpie marker. Then, they dropped liquid watercolor on the paper using a pipette (more fine motor work). Lastly, they used a straw to blow the paint just like the wind blows leaves.
Rainbow Windsock! Windsocks are super easy to make. We had students paint a rainbow on a piece of paper, but you can have them just paint their own creative design as well. Once it’s dry, glue or staple the sides of the paper together to make a cylinder shape. Tape a piece of string to the top for a handle. Students can cut crepe paper and glue it to the bottom. Don’t forget to take them outside for students to observe how the wind blows!
Weather Themed Blocks Center! In the blocks center (or STEM center), put weather-themed STEM challenge cards on the board to inspire your little builders to create something weather related. Some fun props you can add are:
- rainbow blocks (Walmart)
- crepe paper (for kite and rainbow making)
- colored felt (for kite and umbrella making)
- blue glass gems (pretend to be rain)
- cotton balls (pretend to be clouds)
- lightning bots (cut from yellow foam)
>>Grab the FREEBIE by entering your email in the box at the bottom of this blog post!<<
Weather Science! Make weather sensory bottles, create weather sorting cards, explore the capacity of different-sized raindrops and explore and create different kinds of clouds at the science table.
How to make Weather Sensory Bottles:
- sunny: blue water and a yellow pom pom
- cloudy: blue water and cotton balls
- rainy: blue water and blue glitter
- stormy: grey water, cotton balls, blue glitter, and foam lightning blots
- hail: water, clear glass gems
- snow: water, white pom poms, clear glitter
- windy: water, felt, or foam leaves
>> Grab my NEW All About Weather Science Unit HERE <<
That was a ton of weather-themed activities, and I hope it helped you plan your own weather theme for your classroom!
Check out the weather activities in action here.
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hey, i’m jackie!
I’m Jackie, your go-to girl for early childhood inspiration and research-based curriculum.
