It may be raining cats and dogs, but you can still have some fun, with a little learning time mixed in.

Splish Splash Paintings
Get out your favorite water colors and paint some pictures. Set them outside in the rain for a few minutes and see what the raindrops do to move the colors around and create a whole new look.

Let It Pour
Set an empty bowl or bucket outside—you now have a rain gauge. Note the time and decide how often you want to check your rain gauge. Use a ruler to measure how much rain has fallen every half hour or hour. Keep a graph as the inches fill up your bucket. Next time you listen to the weather report, your child will understand the concept of “rainfall” measured in inches.

Heart to Heart
Learning the alphabet has never been more fun. Cut out 52 construction paper hearts. Write duplicate upper case letters to create 26 pairs of hearts. Mix them up and put them in a basket. Your child can practice matching and naming the letters. To increase the difficulty, make upper and lower case letters to match.

(For a really durable learning game, draw your hearts, write the letters and run the sheets through the laminating machine at Kinko’s before you cut them out.)