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
PS… 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.
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.
Have a younger child at home, try these writing activities for toddlers.
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
Great activity for preschool and prewriting, I've got to work on the pressure of my little one's marks do you have any tips?
oh how we love our crayon resist arts this side!
I love the pre-writing skills involved, as well as the art technique of crayon resist. 🙂 Another idea for the lesson plan book. Thanks! 🙂
This looks like a fun and simple activity to do with the kids!
What a fun, seasonal art project!
My son loves making crayon resist paintings so this is perfect for us this week!
What a fun way to use crayon resist to capture the weather. The picture is really beautiful. We will have to make one!
My preschooler has not had much success with the pain resistant Crayon trick. She's not a Crayon person, but I can make the rain and let her paint. This is pretty cool.
So genius and so simple! Downwards stroke are something we are working on right now and I love this idea. Plus, it is raining here today so this will be a perfect activity. Love, love, love!