The Little Cloud By Eric Carle: Spring Craft & Writing ACtivity

Weather is one of my favorite units to teach in first grade. I especially love finding ways to connect content and literacy and weather is just so easy to do this with fiction texts!

This Little Cloud by Eric Carle craft is the perfect creative writing project for our first grade weather unit! I have done this every year with my first graders… it makes a great display and the kids love the creative outlet!

This year, I am on mommy break with my little preschooler, so we did this project during our homeschool preschool time the other day! And we had a blast!

Read on for more on how I adapted this art activity to push higher order thinking skills in my kiddos and grab the Little Cloud by Eric Carle craft and writing activity.

Little Cloud by Eric Carle craft and writing activity - blog image

Little Cloud, By Eric Carle, Read Aloud

First, we read Eric Carle’s Little Cloud. This adorable story follows a cloud as it moves through the sky and changes shapes. We talked about what shapes the cloud turned into in the story. Then we discussed what other shapes clouds could turn into.

(In the classroom, I love reading this book outside on a partly cloudy day so that we can look at the clouds and imagine what they look like before reading! It’s a great way to get some sunshine, vitamin D, and exercise those creative thinking skills before diving into reading!)

Little Cloud Tear Art

Then, we each took half a page of white construction paper and started tearing. Over the years in first grade, I have changed this part of the activity. I started out years ago letting my firsties tear whatever they wanted their cloud to be–no scissors…tearing only. But I kinda got bored with this. It really ended up being more of an art project and less of a creative thinking project.

So a couple of years into teaching, I changed the rules! Now I set a limit on the number of tears. And we all tear together to make sure no one purposefully makes a shark or whatever they want. The point is to imagine what it looks like–not to create what you are imagining it should be.

We tear once. Then we tear again. They can choose to turn the paper in whichever direction for each tear. I usually stop between 4-6 tears. Sometimes, I even give them the choice to stop at 4 tears or tear another time.

What Else Can It Be?

Once, we’ve finished tearing, we look at our “cloud” and decide what it turned into. We turn it all in different directions wondering, “What could my cloud be?” This has really helped beef up this activity to higher level thinking because it forces kids to take what they already have and make something out of it…instead of having full control.

This was Cooper’s first cloud he made. “Yook, Momma, it’s a pig! See his nose?”

Once he figured out what his cloud had turned into, we glued it onto his “sky.”

The Little Cloud Writing

Then, Cooper wrote what his cloud turned into…this was his first cloud, a boot. This writing activity was perfect for my little emerging writer. But even in first grade, the focus of this activity isn’t writing, it’s pushing kids to think outside the box!