Brilliant & EASY Themed Activities For Babies: Weather

10+ fun activities for babies! (Early Years Framework 0-11 Months Age Band) – these activities can be adapted for toddlers & pre-school children according to your child’s needs & development.

Give your child the ‘educational edge’, preparing them for nursery and beyond…

Contents:

1. Treasure Box
2. Rain, Rain, Go Away Activities
3. Baby Exercise
4. Water Play
5. Bubbles
6. Sensory Bags
7. Windmills
8. Snow Dough
9. Home-Made Sun
10. Finger Painting
11. Recommended Books

Treasure Box

With babies I think a Treasure Box (follow the link for a fab explanation!) is a great way to introduce one or more activities. Even better these can be left out (as appropriate & safe) for baby to explore.

In Sophie’s Treasure Box I put:

• A Baby Rainmaker or you can use an empty container filled with dried lentils (sealed shut) to tip and make rain sounds
• Weather symbol cut outs – I printed a few enlarged bright and colourful clip-art symbols on card for baby to look at. These can be used throughout the theme.
• Spin and Learn Torch – I made a bright sun on the wall – we also made some shadows. Be careful not to shine in baby’s eyes.
• Peek-a-Boo Sensory Scarves – I put these lightly over Sophie’s eyes & played ‘where is she?’ & peek-a-boo! pretending it was foggy!
• Books about weather – there’s lots to choose from – see my ‘Recommended Books’ section for some fab ideas!

Babies will love exploring any of the items you choose to put in the box (make sure the items are ‘baby safe’, little one has a full tummy & aren’t too tired so it’s a safe & fun experience!). Below are some more Weather games, songs & activities you can do with your baby!

Let’s SING!

Rain, Rain, Go Away

A lovely weather themed song is Rain, Rain Go Away. Watch the video with your baby & sing along. You could do some actions e.g. wiggle fingers to imitate rain falling, march along with baby in time with the music or splash fingers into a small dish of water. Use a Rainmaker (or make your own) & watch the colourful balls move down the toy and listen to the ‘rain’ with them.

I Hear Thunder:  Make lots of banging noises throughout the song except for when you sing “pitter, patter raindrops” where you can sing quietly & make light tapping noises. Try and encourage baby to join in!

Let’s MOVE!

Baby Exercise

Play Rain, Rain Go Away or other ‘weather’ music e.g.  The Sun Has Got His Hat On  & as you are listening move different parts of their body in time to the music. Sophie loved having her arms waved above her head and having her legs moved. If you make their arms and legs touch cross-laterally (right foot to left hand / left foot to right hand) you are seriously stimulating their brains and getting those learning connections going! Yeah!

Let’s make RAIN

Water Play

You can’t have a rain theme without getting wet!

If it’s raining lightly wrap up & take your baby out into the rain – let the water splash onto their face & stimulate those senses.

It’s never too early to introduce your baby to water play so:

ADULT PREP: Fill a shallow dish or tray with warm water. Optional – Add a variety of empty containers, plastic bath toys and a sponge.

Let baby splash their hands or feet. If they’re still tiny do this gently for them and let some water drip down their face.

For older babies extend the learning by adding containers with different sized holes. Show them how to fill the containers and let them watch as the water ‘rains’ out of the holes. They may try and catch the water with their hands if they’re feeling brave!

You could also add a sponge to the water and squeeze to make imaginary rain clouds! Don’t forget you can do the water play at bath time too!

Bubbles

Not quite rain, but similar! Babies love BUBBLES
(one of Sophie’s absolute favourites!!!). Blow  bubbles around baby, let them watch (eye-tracking) and get the bubbles to pop on baby’s head, hands & feet!

Sensory Bags

A final, rainy sensory activity that you could do involves a bit of preparation beforehand.

WHAT YOU NEED: A plastic ‘ziplock’ bag; blue hair gel OR corn flour / blue food dye; buttons / glittery bits / sequins etc.

ADULT PREP: Make a ‘rain puddle’ mixture – you could use cheap blue hair gel or mix cornflour and blue food dye. Find the recipe here. Use this to partially fill a ‘ziplock’ bag or similar. Then add whatever you like, e.g. some glittery bits or buttons. I used plastic spiders as it was Halloween and we had been singing the Incy Wincy Spider song. Seal the bag!!!

Baby will love touching the picture and watching the ‘goo’ move around, but you’ll have no mess to clean up!

It’s BREEZY here @ Sophie’s Nursery

Windmills

Another weather type to explore is wind! Go out in the wind if there is any & take a colourful Windmill or pinwheel with you & let it spin (or blow on it yourself if the breeze won’t do the job). Sophie loves her windmills. You can make your own windmill, but definitely an adult job as you will need scissors & have to use a map pin or thumb tack. Find out how here.

Small streamers or a ‘windsock’ made of light paper/tissue fixed to a straw or stick are simpler ways of catching the breeze & involves no pins!

Indoors & with great care, sit with baby a safe distance away from a fan – make sure they don’t get too cold. Briefly let them experience the sensation of air blowing on their body & hair – you could have them just in a nappy so they can feel it all over.

It’s SNOWING!

Snow Dough

One of Sophie’s favourite activities once she could sit up was getting incredibly messy and just exploring things with her hands. I used to (and still do!) make SNOW DOUGH for her to explore. My Snow Dough is basically something that looks like snow and is safe for babies as it’s made out of food items.

Snow Dough with only 2 ingredients – Just mix cornflour and cooking oil…That’s it! Find detailed instructions & more ideas on how to use snow dough HERE.

Here comes the SUN!

Home-Made Sun

So all the weather so far has been a bit doom and gloom…Let’s add some sunshine!

WHAT YOU NEED: Paper plate, yellow, black & orange felt tips & googly eyes.

ADULT PREP: Colour a paper plate yellow, add some eyes and some orange rays.

Get baby’s attention & move around the room encouraging baby to follow the homemade ‘sun’ helping develop their eye tracking & attention skills.

OR instead of a paper plate, you could use a round mirror for baby to look at – they love nothing more than their own reflection!

Finger Painting

Let baby (probably more suitable for 6+ months) have a go at some finger painting! We used shop bought finger paints and a tray to put the colours in. You could use yellow to make a sunny day picture or blue for a rainy day picture.

Some of Sophie’s Recommended Books for Weather

Babies love books especially ones with bright, colourful pictures. Try and read books (fiction and non-fiction) to babies at least twice a day to develop a range of communication and language skills! They won’t understand the text, but it will expose them to lots of words and they’ll love looking at the pictures and, of course, listening to you. Some of our favourites to use with this theme are:

• Rain (Whatever the Weather) – Carol Thompson
• Sun (Whatever the Weather) – Carol Thompson
• Guess How Much I Love You in the Winter – Sam McBratney
• The Snow Storm (Mini Farmyard Tales) – Heather Amery 
• Elmer’s Touch and Feel World – David McKee
• Miffy in the Snow – Dick Bruna
• Miffy in the Snow
  – Lucy Cousins
• Kipper’s Snowy Day – Mick Inkpen
• One Snowy Night (A Tale from Percy’s Park) –Nick Butterworth
• Peppa Pig: The Biggest Muddy Puddle in the World Picture Book – Ladybird
• Sunny Day (Usborne Picture Books) – Anna Milbourne
• Alfie Weather – Shirley Hughes
• Weather (My Pop-Up World) – Nicola Killen

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