R is for Rain

My kids love to water color, so we created water color letters for our study of rain.

I outlined bubble letters–the word “Rain” for my daughter (4.5) and just an “R” for my son (2.5).  On reflection, I would have also made a lower case “r” for my son.

My daughter painted “in the lines”:

While my son opted for covering the entire page.

Then, they each got to sprinkle salt on their paintings for a nice droplet effect.

My son really enjoyed this part:

Then we cut out the letters. My daughter cut out most of hers and I helped her with some of the tougher spots.  My son is not ready to cut out shapes yet so I gave him another piece of paper to cut with his scissors while I cut out the “R”.

Now, a sane woman would have had the kids paste it on a blue sheet of paper and stopped there.

My daughter wanted to make a rainy day window, though, so we used blue painter’s tape to create a window and painted a rainy scene:

After the backgrounds dried, we removed the painter’s tape and wrapped the paintings in plastic to give them a wet, slick appearance.

Then, the kids pasted the letters onto the background.

After we finished our art, we read picture books about rain:

Who Likes Rain? by Wong Herbert Yee: The rhyming, sometimes onomatopoeic text, follows a little girl through a rainy day. As she explores, she discovers, “who likes rain?” and who does not. The sweet illustrations perfectly capture a preschool child’s sense of wonder. We enjoy the built-in anticipation of guessing the answer to each riddle.

I Love the Rain by Margaret Park Bridges: Two young friends are waiting in the rain for the bus. Everyone is grumpy about the weather except Sophie, who shows Molly a new way of looking at the rain. Beautiful rainy-day illustrations subtly demonstrate how much more fun even a gloomy day can be with some creativity and a positive perspective. My kids love the imagery and I appreciate the friendship and the joie de vivre.

Shared at: stART