Craving a little rain? Not likely, but still, everyone likes to be a rainmaker, and this activity is perfect for that. No prep or special ingredients required; this will be mesmerizing to your child.
This is a very good way to entertain your child for 20 to 30 minutes (even longer sometimes). It is a nice quiet activity that allows for independent work. Now, although I am promising a quiet activity, don’t be surprised if instead you get squeals of delight and excitement, and even some jumping up and down. Your child will want to do this activity over and over again!
Best Ages For This Activity
Two to five.
How to Make It
Ingredients
- Shaving cream
- A clear glass or jar
- Water
- Food colouring (you don’t need many colours, just one is good enough, but more colours is always more fun!) – make sure it’s the one that you press on to get one drop at a time (like the one here), otherwise you will also need pipettes
Let’s get started!
- Invite your child to make rain in a cup
- Get your clear glass/jar and fill it with cold water (about ¾ of the way full)
- Make a fluffy “cloud” on top of the water using the shaving cream
- Next comes the most fun part of all – your child will make the cloud “rain”! To do this, they squirt a few drops of food colouring on top of their “cloud” and wait until it makes its way through the shaving cream and starts to “rain” just like in the picture – it is truly mesmerizing!
- If you do have pipettes at home (which I use and re-use for many of my activities), you can dilute the food colouring into a little water and use the pipette instead to squirt a few drops on the cloud.
- You can use blue, to make it like rain, or several colours of food colouring to make it your very own creation of rainbow rain, not to mention watch the colours twirl and mix beautifully once they reach the water
Learning Opportunities
Although this activity is often classified as a S.T.E.M. or science experiment by schools, I don’t really think of it as such. To me, it is more of a fine motor activity as children have to learn to squeeze the pipettes to control how much food colouring comes out, which isn’t easy at first. This makes it a great and very fun pre-writing game. Make sure that it is your child and not you squeezing the colour in. If you use several colours of food colouring, they can observe colour mixing in action, which is both a math and arts activity.
Extended Learning Opportunities
Learn about rain clouds (natural science) and about our planet and the world around us.
What are clouds?
Clouds are formed when water vapor rises into the air and condenses onto tiny particles. When billions of these droplets come together, they form into a visible cloud. Over time, the droplets and crystals that make up a cloud can attract more water to themselves. When water droplets grow heavy enough, gravity pulls them down as raindrops.
Learn the science of the water cycle in this kid friendly and informative article by national Geographic kids here.
Your child can also watch a video about how clouds are formed below:
Extended Learning Opportunities
See if you can observe the colours mixing and learn about math and art while observing how colours blend into different colours as they fall through your “cloud” and begin mixing. Can you tell what new colours appear? What existing colours had to mix in order to make the new colours?
CEFA tip: Remember to let your child do as much of the process as they are capable of.
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