Before April comes to an end, I want to share a huge set of rainy day themed activities that I created to compliment the book Red Rubber Boot Day, By Mary Lyn Ray. All the activities in this post have a red rubber boot and puddle theme like the story, but they all compliment a rainy day theme, weather theme, letter r theme or letter b theme as well. Below you will find literacy and math activities to enhance letter recognition, beginning sound recognition, rhyming, syllable identification, writing skills, number recognition, counting, and subitizing.
First, let’s talk about the book! At the center of the story is a child who is trying to decide how to entertain himself on a rainy day. The book uses lots of sensory language to describe the rain- how it smells and how it feels on your bare feet. The child goes through lots of imaginative play during the rainstorm until the weather breaks and he can go splash in all the puddles.
Because the story is so relatable, I decided to start with a question of the day: Do you like rainy days? You can display this header on a vertical surface or pocket chart, then provide cards or sticky notes with your students’ names on them. Students can place their card under the answer that describes their own feelings. Either yes, they do like rainy days or no, they do not. I’ve also seen this done with popsicle sticks in two different jars. I would challenge you to revisit the question of the day before and after reading the story to see if anyone changes their mind.
The next activity in the set is a Rainy Day and Sunny Day Picture Card Sort. Each picture card represents a fun activity that kids like to do. You can challenge your students to determine if each activity is best for a rainy day or a sunny day and why. Some of the activities have an obvious answer and others might be up for discussion. Several of the activities are showcased in the book, including playing cars, reading, building with blocks, and making a cave in the closet.
A great way to develop phonemic awareness is to practice identifying syllables in given words. In this activities set, I designed a syllable card sort using picture cards to represent 1, 2, or 3 syllable units. The pictures on the picture cards are all spring related with a red rubber boot theme. They can be sorted onto the puddle card with the corresponding number of syllables.
Another great way to develop phonemic awareness is with rhyming activities! Here is a red rubber boot themed rhyming activity to help do just that. Each puzzle is red boot themed and self-correcting, they will only connect one certain way. Students who aren’t sure about a match can check the pattern on the puzzle to find out if they got a rhyming match or need to try again.
If your students are ready to practice matching beginning sounds, this literacy center is perfect! I created 26 puddle themed beginning sound picture cards, 26 red rubber boot themed uppercase cards, 26 red rubber boot themed lowercase cards, and 26 red rubber boot themed sound cards for this matching center.
I do think that centers with this many loose cards can become really cumbersome for little learners, especially preschoolers. When I do matching games like this with my kids, I select the letters that I want them to practice ahead of time. I usually don’t choose more than 10 – 12, depending on the learner. In this matching game, I lay out all the puddle cards on the table in front of them. Then I gather all the corresponding matches, shuffle them and put them together in a draw pile. When presented this way, it becomes more of a cooperative game. Preschoolers can take turns drawing a card and placing it on the correct puddle. They work together to complete all the matches.
If your preschoolers are still working on identifying and writing letters, you can simply use the uppercase and/or lowercase boot cards in a couple different ways. You can select 10 – 12 letter matches and make a concentration game. Or you can put the letters in a draw pile and give your preschoolers the Red Rubber Boot Alphabet Build and Write Mat. With this activity, preschoolers can draw an alphabet card, build it with a given manipulative, then practice writing it at the bottom. In the example, I used blue flat marbles, but pipe cleaners, beads, buttons, playdough, and wiki stix work well too!
Another way to practice letter identification is with the Raindrop Alphabet Cover Up Mat. I LOVE these cover up activities because they are so versatile. You can choose to match uppercase to uppercase letters, lowercase to lowercase letters, lowercase to uppercase letters, beginning sounds to uppercase letters, or beginning sounds to lowercase letters. You can set up the activity according to your preschoolers needs. They also work well as an independent center, partner activity or group activity. Of course the cards work just fine in a draw pile, but you can make the game extra engaging by setting the cards up in a sensory bin for students to search in. I included blue dyed rice, blue flat marbles and cotton balls. The blue flat marbles work well to cover up the letters on the cover up mat as they are identified because they are heavy and stay in place. You can also use bingo dotters, round counters, buttons, pom poms, whatever you have!
I love to sneak in some low pressure writing practice whenever I can for preschoolers to practice pencil grip and letter formation. If your preschoolers are ready to practice writing letters, you can use the Red Rubber Book Flip and Write with any set of letter cards (uppercase or lowercase). Simply make a pile of the letters you’d like your preschooler to practice and have them flip the pile one at a time. After flipping each card, have your preschooler write that letter in an empty box on the recording sheet. Keep flipping until each box is filled or the card pile runs out. You can use this same recording sheet with the number cards too!
The last literacy activities I want to highlight are the Red Rubber Boot Cut & Paste Printables. I like to include printables in my resource packs to compliment the centers. These are good assessment tools that help you gauge what a preschooler can do independently after practicing the same skills with you or a friend. All three of these printables have students cut out the boot cards at the bottom and glue them to the corresponding puddles at the top.
Now let’s talk about math centers! This resource pack includes several number cards that can be used lots of different ways. There are 20 puddle themed number cards, 20 red rubber boot themed number cards, 20 red rubber boot themed tens frame cards, and 12 red rubber boot themed dice cards.
Similar to the letter and sound matching game above, you can use the number cards to create a number matching game. Each puddle number card can correspond to a number boot card, a tens frame boot card and a dice boot card (up to 12). Select the numbers you’d like your preschoolers to practice and set up your matching game just like the game above.
I love incorporating tens frame activities into any number practice for preschoolers. They are great for building number sense, one to one correspondence, and help prepare your preschooler for subitizing. You can use the red rubber boot themed number cards to practice numbers 1 – 10 or 1 – 20 on the tens frames. Again, I used blue flat marbles in the example (I think they make perfect rain drops!), but you can use anything you have on hand- buttons, counters, playdough balls, anything!
You can also use these tens frames with a sensory bin to hold the cards. It’s fun for preschoolers to go searching in the bin for the different cards until they’ve practiced all the numbers. You can set this up for an individual or use it in a group and take turns fetching numbers.
Speaking of sensory bins, I made Cover Up Mats for numbers too! There are two mats: numbers 1 – 12 and 1 – 20. You can use these in several ways to match numbers to numbers, numbers to dice, or tens frames to numbers. Number card draw piles work just fine too if you’re in a pinch!
Of course every book companion pack needs a write and draw response activity! I like to keep it simple and let your little learners add their own personality to it. This printable is no prep at all. It simply asks your preschooler to draw a picture of what they like to do on rainy days. Then there is space in the puddle for you or your beginning writer (if they’re ready) to write down what that fun activity is. These would make a great bulletin board! Another idea would be to take a photo of your little learner jumping in the air (as if they were jumping in a puddle), print it, cut it out, and glue it to the page.
If you are interested in any of the activities in this post, you can find them here:
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