Rainbows and Storm Clouds

I have a couple more weather-themed projects to share with you, although the rainbows we actually made for St. Patrick's Day and I never got around to blogging about them. We talked about rainbows last week when we learned about all the crazy weather spring brings, so I thought it was a good time to share them. I first tried Kool-aid art last summer, and I fell in love instantly. You just sprinkle Kool-aid powder on paper, then stand back and spray water on it! It's so easy and creates beautiful art. But last summer the kids just sprinkled it all over their paper any which way. This time I encouraged them to make a rainbow. I set out 6 different colors of Kool-aid and they got to work.

It doesn't look like much at first, but once you use a spray bottle, the colors come to life! And so does the scent!

It's important not to spray too much water on them. The pictures should still have some texture to them. I let the kids use the spray bottle themselves, and a few of them got carried away. Also, don't spray too close to the picture. Spray bottles don't really work when you face them down anyway, so stand back and aim almost straight ahead. Just make sure the Kool-aid powder that is still in the bowls doesn't get hit by the water or it will be ruined for other kids who haven't made theirs yet.

The other weather-related project I want to show you is our storm clouds. During free-play in the morning, when kids were being dropped off, I had them come over to the table one at a time. I put white and black paint on a piece of paper and they used their fingers to swirl it around and mix it up, making a storm cloud.

Then during art time, when it was mostly dry, they used glitter glue to make lightning. I taught them that lightning can be many different colors and that purple lightning is the hottest.

We used gold glitter for yellow, and I didn't have it in a glitter glue pen, so they used regular white glue and then sprinkled gold glitter on top. That was actually easier because those glitter pens can be pretty hard to use! Especially when they are almost empty. For some kids, I ended up squeezing the pen and they moved my hand where they wanted the lightning to go.

We finally have warm spring weather and I hope it's here to stay!