Rainy March sure came in like a lion, and seems to be ending the same way! Meaning it was the perfect time to make a rain meter! Travis wasn’t especially interested in making this craft (another clever suggestion from High Five magazine), but he sure loved the results!

To make the rain meter, we laid a fork along a piece of masking tape and made 5 notches. Label them 1 through 5, having your child count along with you.

Place the tape on a plastic cup, then secure the cup some place outside where rain will fall. We taped ours quite securely to the balcony because our rain storm involved a lot of wind!

The next morning, we could check on our results. When I told Travis the liquid in the cup was rain, he was amazed. “Can I hold it?” he asked. “Can I touch it?” I have to admit, I’ve never put my fingers in a cup of collected rain water either, and it was neat to think that they started out as individual rain drops!

After the first storm, the rain was just above our 1 mark. We intend to keep collecting through upcoming April showers to see how much spring rain we get!