A great way for children to explore weather concepts with their senses!
Tis the season of lots of rain and with all that rain, we were inspired to make our own rainstick in a bottle…
Miss Lauren came up with this brilliant and simple idea for the children to make. She wanted the children to explore the weather with all their senses and the rainstick in a bottle invited the children to listen to the ‘rain’ and to look at the ‘rain’ as it flowed through their ‘clouds’.
Why we Love Rainstick in a Bottle
I love the rainstick in a bottle because it includes time in sensory play, as well as invites creativity along with further discussion about the weather.
The How-To
Miss Lauren saved up plastic bottles for the children to use. I think the bottles were Sparkling Water bottles but I am not for sure. To make the rainstick in a bottle, the children began by filling their bottles with cotton ball clouds. It is better to not pack the bottle full of cotton balls but to fill it lightly so that the rain can trickle down to the bottle of the bottle.
Once the children added their clouds, they were ready to add the rain. The children could use the funnel to add rain to their bottles or just use their hands and sprinkle the rain right over the rice tub.
Preparing the “Rain”
Miss Lauren added colored rice for the rain. She placed the rice in a baggie with blue liquid watercolor then kneaded the bag till all the rice turned the desired color of blue. Then she spread the rice out on a tray and left it to dry overnight.
As you can see, not every child followed the order that I described above when making their rainsticks in a bottle, but it didn’t really matter…
All that mattered was adding a little of both cotton and rice. We didn’t worry about amounts as the children could test it out to see if they liked the amounts they added to their bottle. If not, just pour some out and start again!
Enjoying the Process
Once the bottle had the desired amount of clouds and rain, its time to put on the lid and watch the rain flow through the clouds as they turned the bottle slowly up then down…
Oh, and don’t forget to add your name!
The rainstick in a bottle center remained open through out the morning so the children would have plenty of time to create their rainstick…
This was an activity that the children enjoyed exploring and it was fun watching them enjoy the process!
Available on Amazon
Links to Grow On
Exploring Raindrops and Clouds by Teach Preschool
Rainy Day Drawing Cube on Preschool Spot!
For more great spring idea see Spring on Pinterest – click here!