Experiments for Children on a Rainy Day

Five low-tech ways to build on your child’s innate curiosity about the rain from the comfort of your home:

* Post a rain gauge and a thermometer, then keep a daily journal of the weather at certain times of the day, including the temperature and any rain received in the last 24 hours. (A $14.95 rain gauge can be ordered at https://www.e-sci.com.)

* Place measuring cups around different parts of the lawn or near a gutter spout to compare amounts of rainfall.

* Test your dog’s sense of taste and smell. Collect rainwater in a bowl and place it beside a bowl of tap water. See which one the dog prefers. “I’ve read that pets drink from puddles because they prefer rain water. They smell the chlorine in tap water,” says Leah Melber, science education specialist at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

* Sit under an overhang with your eyes closed and listen to the patterns of the rain. “Ask yourself, ‘What sounds do I hear?’ I’m really interested in the feelings and emotions that are invoked by nature,” Melber says.

* Look up at the sky on a regular basis, not just when it rains. “The variety of cloud formations and sky phenomena are fascinating, and each of these can be identified if you have a cloud chart,” says Joe Sirard of the National Weather Service.

Other helpful tools for the serious hobbyist: “A Field Guide to the Atmosphere” by Vincent J. Schaefer and John A. Day (Houghton Mifflin, 1999, $20) and a subscription to Weatherwise magazine; go to https://www.weatherwise.org or call (202) 296-6267.