Rainy Day Learning Fun!

   Well, things are looking great for my 1st Facebook Fan Giveaway and I ecstatic at how much it has reached my target audience! My fan page has almost reached 100 fans.... it is very exciting! I might have to start planning to have a "100 Fans" Giveaway very soon!
    Click HERE (if you haven't already) and join in on the giveaway!
    Anyhow, I know the past 2 weeks have been wild and my blogging routine was out of sorts, but I am working hard to get back on track. There are so many things to share with you, so let me get moving along.
   Is it raining where you are? It has rained almost every day this week and it seems the week will be ending with lot of rain. BLAH.... I guess it's good because then one day we will wake up and there will be lush green leaves on all the trees and  gorgeous flowers blooming everywhere.

    All this rain has inspired me to create some fun learning activities for the little munchkin. 

    The little munchkin is getting ready to end her preschool year and she is still working hard to learn as many sight words as she can. If I didn't know any better, I would think she really wants to be reading alot of words (and maybe even reading on her own) during the summer!

So, I made a few Sight Word Games with a fun, rainy theme:

Sight Word Match

Sight Word Spelling

(Both of these printable activities will be available in my TPT store by the end of the week)

Raindrop Counting

This activity was a simple, DIY idea that I came across at My Nearest and Dearest. 

Raindrop Rhymes:

    I made this game to give the munchkin some practice with rhymes. (Afterwards, she found that playing with the paper umbrella was much more fun!)

    We are in for some more rain for the rest of the week and I am looking for more Rainy Day fun for her to come home to! Please share any ideas that you may have!  

Mad Science Monday: "Where does rain come from?"

    This past weekend had us pretty busy and for the better part of Saturday, we were dealing with rain and cold.  BLAH!
   Sometime on Saturday, while we were at the Autism Awareness Walk, the little munchkin asked me: "Why is there so much rain?"  I asked her, "Well, do you know were rain comes from?" And she, like many kids, stated, "From the sky."...
    Now this isn't exactly the wrong answer and most kids will give this answer, however, it prompted me to give her a very elementary explanation of the water cycle so she could learn that yes, rain does come from the sky, but more specifically, it comes from the clouds.
   I didn't use too much elaborate wording with her though. I simply told her that water vapor is found in the rivers, lakes, oceans and on the ground, and when there is warm air around, the water vapor rises up into the sky as little drops of water and those little droplets form clouds. When the clouds get full of water droplets, it falls back to the ground as rain!

   I read the book "Down Comes The Rain" by Franklyn M. Branley & James Graham Hale. And for a more simple and visual explanation of this whole process,  I took a bag of cottonballs to serve as "clouds" and filled a small vase with water.

   I put one cottonball in the water to show her how it absorbed some water, and then squeezed the water out to show her how much was absorbed inside of the cottonball.
    I asked her to guess how many cottonballs we would need to absorb all the water. She estimated that it would take 22 cottonballs to get rid of all the water in the vase.

    Then she was off to test her guess.

    She found out that it took 74  cottonballs to gather and absorb all of the water out of the vase! That's a whole lot of cottonballs... but they were fairly small ones. I am sure those jumbo ones can hold much more water.

And then the fun part: 

Making Rain!

    I told her that the "clouds" were now full of water and when that happens, the water comes out of the clouds in the form of rain drops!
   I gave her the go ahead to SQUEEZE all the water out of the "clouds" and make rain... which was what she was waiting to do!

And of course, some cottonball and water play followed!

    So, if your munchkins ask you where rain comes from, try out this quick little experiment to give them a visual and very basic understanding of the water cycle and how rain forms!

Rr is for Rain, Rocks and Rainbow Letters!

    Well, the school year isn't quite over YET... 3 more days!! But I am already in summer mode...and I have been for quite some time now... what can I say? It really has been a LONG year!!

   I am planning away for summer fun with my little one... and now I am thinking that I need to find ways to keep my teen involved and active this summer too, so I am thinking up some fun projects for him to do.

  Anyway, we have had a lot of rain lately and our eyes are glued on the munchkin’s little garden.

   Here are her hands hard at work about 2-3 weeks ago. We are still patiently waiting for something to come up...

   While waiting, the little one has been learning about the letter Rr. We have talked about RAIN and where it comes from and how it helps flowers to grow.

   I found this very cute April Showers unit at Our Little Monkeys.   It’s not April, but who cares, right? 

   She worked on math skills by counting and coloring, rather than using clips. Even my kitty, Brooklyn wanted to practice counting!

   And she worked on patterns too.

   There are so many other fun and cute printables  in this pack. Go check them out and pick up a FREE copy from her website.

   We reviewed the letters that we have been learning in our Garden theme (Ff, Gg, Rr) and created the letters from colorful rocks! She called them “Rock Rainbow Letters”

   One day last week, she was in an very artsy mood and wanted to paint and color. I pulled out my letter stencils (from Lakeshore) that I used in the classroom early in the year, and she made “Rainbow Letters”

   This week we will review all the letters again before we move onto our next theme: Sweets. I have quite a bit of yummy fun planned for this theme!
   AND I am also prepping for the Virtual Book Club Summer Camp that begins on June 24^th... I am so excited to join in on this fun!

   But for now, I must TRY and focus my attention on the final days of this school year. Lots to do to prep for our MOving Up Ceremony this year, and then I can put Teaching Year #9 behind me forever!!!

Rainy Day Art...

   Well, I managed to make it through the rest of the week. It was quite an emotional week for every teacher in the center.

   I took the advice from a fellow blogger over at First Grade Fireworks and was reminded that I can make a difference in the life of a child, even if that just means that I give them a hug every day, talk and laugh with them while they are in my care. Sometimes, that is more than enough and may be everything to a child.

   So, although my week started off rough, it ended pretty good.

   This week was a VERY Rainy week… and good thing I planned some fun Rain activities.

   A question that I was prepared for was, “Where does rain come from?” And of course, there was a child who answered, “From the sky”, before I was able to explain. And they were all surprised when I began to explain, ‘”No. Rain does not come from the sky. It comes from the clouds.” And they were all in awe! 

   Their brains were tuned into what I was saying. It was a wonderful “teaching moment.” I had their undivided attention as I briefly described the Water Cycle. When I saw that they looked a little confused, I pulled out some simpler picture cards from The Mailbox to explain.

They had fun making rain with droppers and blue watercolor.

   Throughout the week, I encouraged the munchkins to paint rain or storms. I moved the easel closer to the window to allow them to view the rain outside. I also put a spray bottle on the easel for added creativity.

   Here are 2 different rain day paintings.

     We are hoping that now the warm spring weather will follow all of this rain!! 
   According to the news, we are supposed to get up to 70 degrees tomorrow!!  Now that’s what I am waiting for!! J
  Now back to finishing my lesson plans for the week…