Rain and Rainbows

(or weather)

It was my turn to host playgroup this week and I decided the theme would be weather...with a rain/rainbow angle to go along with St. Patrick's Day.  Here are some of the things we did (some of these are reenactment pics, 'cause I was too busy during the playgroup to take pics)...

Sing a song:
Rain is falling all around (snow is falling, sun is shining)
Once there was a snow man
Mr. Sun (Raffi song)

Read some books about weather:

A Rainbow of My Own
It Looked Like Spilt Milk
Rain Dance
Little Cloud (Little Cloud flannel board printables)
Rain - Robert Kalan

We read Rain by Robert Kalan (illustrated by Donald Crews) and I printed out a bunch of clip art to go along with the story.  The kids each took a picture and put it up on the board when it came up in the story.

Have kids volunteer to dress up for different weather.  Here's Matthew dressed up for rain.  We had the kids dress up and then used the weather board (below) to decide what weather they were ready for.  We had a mirror nearby so they could see themselves.

Snow Clothes (coat, scarf, hat and gloves)
Rain Clothes (umbrella, rain coat, galoshes)
Sun Clothes (sunglasses, sun hat, flip flops)
Have a mirror handy so they can see themselves

Our weather board.  I made this a while ago.  HOT is missing.  It might have gotten left in Okinawa.  :)  We don't have any use for it here right now.  We talked a little about the kinds of weather we have and let the kids put the magnets up.

Kinds of weather (use weather board to talk about them)
Hot
Cold
Rainy
Cloudy
Sunny
Windy
Snowy

Ask what kind of weather they like best

Craft Ideas:

Cotton Ball Cloud with Rainbow coming down (see it HERE)
Marshmallow Rainbow (using small colored marshmallows)
Sponge paint clouds (using cardboard stencils)
Paper plate umbrella (dot markers)

Here's Anna making her rainbow cloud

Treats:

Rainbow Fruit Tray with banana (or marshmallow) clouds (or pots of gold)

This was a big hit, with grown ups and kids.

Cheese Pieces, Crackers
R - strawberries
O - cutie pieces (tangerines) or mandarin oranges
Y - pineapple
G - kiwi or green grape
B - blueberries
P - red grapes (which look purple)
Clouds made of marshmallow and cut bananas

Licorice rainbows with a pot of gold at the bottom

(using bag of Rainbow Twizzlers and Rolos for gold)

We passed these out as the kids were leaving as a parting St. Patrick's Day gift for each kid.  The playgroup was a lot of fun!!  I have only hosted one time since Christmas and this will be my last time since we will be switching to having playgroups at the park soon (hooray for warm weather!!) so I put a bit more into this than if I hosted each week.  It wasn't too hard though, and we all had fun!