Making rain experiment

Support understanding of the world by making rain

Help children to understand how rain is formed, with this fun science activity using water and shaving foam.

You will need:

• shaving foam
• a glass, jug or jar of water
• food colouring (preferably blue)
• a pipette or medicine syringe

What to do

Fill your glass, jug or jar about two-thirds full of water. This is your ‘sky’. Then use the shaving foam to create a ‘cloud’ on top of the water.

Encourage your child to use the pipette or syringe to add droplets of food colouring to the shaving foam ‘cloud’ one by one.

When they have added enough droplets, the food colouring will fall through the ‘cloud’ into the ‘sky’ – just like rain!

Learning and development

This science activity will support children’s understanding of the world, when they see that droplets become too heavy to be held by the ‘cloud’.

Older children can use this experiment to make the connection between the activity and the real world, as they understand that this is how rain is created.

This experiment will also help them develop their attention skills, as adding the droplets one by one means they will need to be patient.

The activity can help children to learn and understand new words such as droplets and condensation.