Rain, Rain...Go Away!

Yes, go away rain... and don't come back another day....

In case you haven't heard....Southern California is about to get walloped with rain. And yes, that's a bummer...although we are in a drought and this is probably necessary.

Want to know what isn't necessary? Calling this storm "Rain-a-geddon" and wait for it.....

"Downpourpocalypse"

Um, yes... that word was used on television. The Oscars are on Sunday... so people are worked up even more about this weather!

Given the snow and craziness that the east coast has been having I think we need to hush up about  our "soakzilla."

I am not making these up people!

None the less, I decided this was a good time to touch on the concept of rain in class. Because to back up a bit.... in January I was trying to teach about winter, snowmen, etc etc and it was about 80 degrees outside.

So today I read the book rain.... no riveting plot, but I do like this story.

I like it because the illustrations build upon each other so it works well for retelling. I ask my little ones to make their own version of the book {not with all the pages...oh my....that would be too much!} but they really have to think about the illustrations they use.

Also I forgot to mention.... this is great color word practice which I expect them to be able to both read and write at this point in the year....

The book actually starts with green grass, but since the kids don't do every page we vote {each small group decides for their table} whether to start with green grass or black road. And you can see that in all three illustrations there is a black road and rain.

Then we move on....

Here you can see the green grass, the black road and now a red car.

The idea is that each page has all the components of the previous one plus a new thing! This really makes them have to think!  And anytime I can sneak in sequencing practice I am happy!

And the pattern continues... and I like that the rain cloud is black now too!

The last page features it ALL!

Above I mentioned that the table of kids had to vote on which pages from the real deal version would feature in theirs.... I ask them to do this for the first two pages. On the last pages they can choose which items they want to have and then the books will vary.... maybe the brown fence or purple flowers, etc.

Most groups of little ones have 4 of the inside pages that read "Rain on the _________ __________" plus the "Rainbow" page at the back, however, some groups had either 5 or 3 pages.

If you would like to try this in your classroom then grab this FREEBIE:

Wait... want another freebie?

If you are looking for another rain activity just go to THIS POST and scroll down to the bottom for a cute rain themed craft idea {and the writing paper is provided as a freebie too!}

Meanwhile, I am off to brave this rain...and although I was slightly laughing at the names people created for this storm I am a bit nervous.....because at the end of the day I am a Californian and I just don't like rain either.... the only difference is that I just call it "rain."