Weather Blog Hop – Toddler Made Rain Catcher

Welcome to March’s Blog Hop and this months theme is Weather for our weather post we are looking at a craft/maths/science activity suitable for Toddlers. A simple Rain Catcher that toddlers/pre-schoolers can make easily and start exploring maths and science through the measuring of water levels in it, this can be adapted for older children by using imperial or metric measurements to mark the rain catcher up and/or by working out the volume of water contained and marking this off on the container.

What you need to make the Rain Catcher

Plastic bottle
Paint
PVA (white glue)
Scissors
Tape
Permanent Marker

Looking for more ideas for activities on the theme of weather, check out our Weather Activities and Crafts for Kids.

How to make a simple Rain Catcher

We made the Rain Catchers with one of J’s little friends A (who as we’re going to have regular Activity Afternoons will probably be featuring more and more in Rainy Day Mum) and this was such an easy introductory craft for her and her mum to do together. Using sharp scissors I cut the top off of the plastic bottle – this is needed to slot into the bottom of the bottle so keep it. To make the activity more fun for J and A we decorated our bottom’s of the bottle – using a 50:50 mix of paint and PVA glue they painted their versions of Spring – J choose to paint green and pink for the flowers in the garden and A yellow and green as her spring colours.

We left the Rain Catchers to dry on the side whilst the children played and then using a permanent marker J helped me draw some lines on the rain catcher – at this stage I wasn’t concerned with that the lines were different distances apart so that the water was measured correctly each time – instead we just needed some marks that were always the same on the rain catcher so we could see the difference over time. J and A are both starting to learn their numbers so we also wrote on the numbers.

Then slot the top of the plastic bottle into the bottom upside down so it forms a funnel. We have put our rain catcher in an area of the garden that is exposed so it won’t get extra water from the trees or guttering of the house but also safe where J, T or the dog can’t knock it over. To read the rain catcher it has to be held up to the light but it works really well.

In our Spring Journals I have made a sheet and we are recording the water levels daily. If you would like to print out the sheet to use to record water levels this spring and put in a spring journal (our spring journal post coming next week) then you can click on the picture below.