• Cotton balls, at least 12 per child
• Glue sticks
• Light blue construction paper, one sheet per child
• Dark color construction paper, such as purple or black, one sheet per child
• Markers or crayons, including silver markers or white or light-colored crayons for drawing on dark construction paper
• Moistened paper towels
• Optional: Digital camera or smartphone

• Consider having the group do this activity and Activity 6, Raindrops and Clouds at the same time. If you have a large group and room for multiple activity areas, plan to set up one drawing area and multiple stations for the water play in Activity 6 and to rotate small groups of children to the stations.
• If the day is windy or snowy, consider replacing this activity and/or Activity 6, Raindrops and Clouds, with Alternate Activity 1, Outdoors in Wind or Snow.
• Set up an activity area with construction paper, markers or crayons, cotton balls, and glue sticks.

Children create two skies, one stormy and one sunny, using cotton balls for clouds.

Invite the children to the activity table.

Ask the children to describe what the sky looks like in sunny weather and in stormy weather. Tell them that they are going to make two skies: a sunny weather sky and a stormy weather sky. For the sunny sky, have them use the light-blue construction paper. Invite them to add a sun, some cotton-ball clouds, and other things they see in sunny weather. For the stormy sky, have the children use the dark-colored paper. Invite them to add cotton-ball clouds and to draw rain, lightning, or other things they see in stormy weather.

Help the children put their names on their skies. Put the sky pictures near the door for the children to take home later.

Invite the children to help clean up by putting away the art supplies and wiping the table with moistened paper towels.

If any child is in a wheelchair, make sure that there is a table at their height, with places for other children as well, so they may create a sky along with everyone. A child with vision limitations can make a daytime sky; talk to them about the texture a cloud might have and engage them to feel cotton balls and glue them to paper. If you have 3-D star stickers, the child can make a night-time sky by feel, as well. If any children have short attention spans and finish their pictures long before everyone else, you could invite them to make another sky picture to hang on the wall of the Chalice Children meeting room. If more activity is needed, you could invite them to pretend to be the wind and blow a cotton ball across the floor.