Clouds, Rain, and Storms

POETRY

	Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem Rain appears in A Child’s Garden of Verses, originally published in 1913. “The rain is raining all around/It falls on field and tree…”)
	Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem The Cloud begins “I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers.”
	Christina Rossetti’s Clouds begins “White sheep, white sheep/On a blue hill…”
	See William Wordsworth’s I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.
	Carl Sandburg’s Fog comes on little cat feet.
	By poet Elena Roo, The Rain Train (Candlewick, 2011) is an onomatopoetic journey by train in the rain. For ages 3-6.
	By Bill Martin, Jr., and John Archambault, Listen to the Rain (Henry Holt and Company, 1988) is an irresistible poem that echoes the sound of rain: “Listen to the rain/the whisper of the rain/the slow soft sprinkle/the drip-drop tinkle/the first wet whisper of the rain.” For ages 3-7.
	A lover of rain is called a pluvophile. If you are one, visit Rainy Mood to listen to the rain anytime.
	Julian Scheer’s marvelously illustrated Rain Makes Applesauce (Holiday House, 1964) is a wonderful magical read. (“The stars are made of lemon juice/and rain makes applesauce./(Oh, you’re just talking silly talk.)”) Read the entire poem here. For ages 4 and up.
	By Joan Bransfield Graham, Splish Splash (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2001) is a great collection of concrete poems about all things water, including one titled “Clouds.” (Kids will want to invent some of their own.) For ages 4-8.
	In Verna Aardema’s rhyming Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain (Puffin, 1992), there’s a drought in Kenya (“These are the cows, all hungry and dry/Who mooed for the rain to fall from the sky”) – which Ki-pat the herdsman ends when he fires an arrow far into the air. Wonderful illustrations of African animals. For ages 4-8.
	Karen Hesse’s Come on, Rain (Scholastic, 1999) is a poetic picture-book celebration of rain cooling a big-city summer heat wave, with great illustrations by Jon Muth. For ages 4-8.
	Thomas Locker’s Cloud Dance (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2003) is a poetic survey of clouds, illustrated with glorious paintings. (“Nighttime clouds/with silver edges/shimmer in the moonlight.”) For ages 4-8.
	Selected by X.J. Kennedy and Dorothy M. Kennedy, Talking Like the Rain (Little, Brown, 1992) is an illustrated collection of poems for children. The “Wind and Weather” section includes poems by Christina Rossetti, Nikki Giovanni, Eve Merriam, Gwendolyn Brooks, and more. For ages 4-9.
	Check out the top 20 weather-related songs.
	The title poem of Jack Prelutsky’s poetry collection It’s Raining Pigs and Noodles (Greenwillow Books, 2005) is a celebration of silly and wonderful rains. (“It’s raining pigs and noodles/it’s pouring frogs and hats/chrysanthemums and poodles/bananas, brooms, and cats.”) For ages 5-10.
	In Nancy Willard’s wonderful and evocative poetry collection A Visit to William Blake’s Inn (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1982), with illustrations by Alice and Martin Provensen, see “The Wise Cow Enjoys a Cloud.” Highly recommended for all ages.
	What if rain dripped in your head and flowed into your brain? Read Shel Silverstein’s Rain.
	From Mother Goose Caboose, Rain Poems is a great list, including selections from Robert Louis Stevenson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Langston Hughes, and Elizabeth Coatsworth.
	Read Rain by Don Paterson, from the poetry collection of the same title.
	By Langston Hughes, see In Time of Silver Rain.
	“Into each life some rain must fall.” So says Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in The Rainy Day.

RAIN? OR REIGN?

	Fred Gwynne’s The King Who Rained (Aladdin, 1998) is a picture book of homophones and idioms, as a puzzled little girl misinterprets forks in the road, fairy tails, boars to dinner, foot prince in the snow, and the king who rained for forty years. For ages 5-8.
	By Will Moses, Raining Cats and Dogs (Philomel, 2008) is a collection of “irresistible idioms and illustrations to tickle the funny bones of young people,” illustrated with Moses’s signature folk art. Lots of fun wordplay for ages 6-11.

CLOUDS, RAIN, AND ART

	Check out this list of the best free word cloud generators – and make some of your own!
	From DLTK’s Crafts, Weather Activities is a collection of projects for preschoolers and elementary-level kids. For example, kids make a cloud wind puppet, paper-cut and salt-crystal snowflakes, a handprint sun, a windsock, and a pinwheel.
	Little Cloud is an art lesson plan from Kinderart in which kids make stuffed clouds and raindrop pictures.
	From Red Ted Art, Weather Get Crafty is a selection of particularly gorgeous weather-based crafts, among them suncatchers, sundials, windspinners, wind chimes, and rain mobiles. There’s even a recipe for yummy rainbow jelly (topped with a cloud).
	From Holly’s Arts and Crafts Corner, the Cloud Jars look like great fun: you’ll need jars of water, shaving cream, and food coloring.
	From AllKids Network, the Raining Cloud Craft is a great mobile with translucent tissue paper raindrops.
	Dutch artist Berndnaut Smlide makes dramatic indoor clouds.
	Cummulus is a mathematically accurate sculpture of crocheted clouds. An incredible art project.
	At Clouds in Art, visitors try to match clouds in famous paintings to photos of cloud types.
	The Art of Clouds is a slide-show exercise in which viewers are challenged to identify the kinds of clouds pictured in paintings.
	From the Art Institute of Chicago, view Georgia O’Keeffe’s painting Sky Above Clouds.