Activities for a rainy day!
Following some very successful holiday camps where these activities were very positively received, I thought it might be useful to share how we did them with you. They are all fantastic projects to do at home when you have little else to do and keep the children busy and focused for a good amount of time. Click on the links below to skip to the good bits!
Make a Lava Lamp
The kids LOVED this activity. Whilst it only took 10-15 minutes to make, it’s something you can use over and over again and we struggled to tear the kids away from it!
For this activity, you will need the following:
A clear plastic bottle
Water
Oil
Alka seltzer or soluble paracetamol tablets
Food colouring (optional)
Sequins and glitter (optional)
Fill the bottle up with oil about 2/3 full and fill the remainder of the bottle with water (minus a cm or two at the top to allow for movement).
Add in a colour of your choosing (you only need a few drops) and any sequins or glitter, too.
Take care not to shake the bottle at any point as we found this ruined some of the lava lamps and even turned some of them solid!
Add in one alka seltzer or paracetamol tablet and enjoy! You can add in another once the bubbling has stopped.
Guess the food
This activity is all about trying new things and being brave. Some children have no issue with trying new food and others have big fears around it, so judge this one accordingly! I used simple foods like cherry tomatoes, blueberries and rice cakes but still got reactions like this!
I made it clear to the children that they could choose whether to close their eyes and try or open their eyes to see what it was before eating it. They were also allowed to say no if they did not want to do it. It goes without saying that I checked for allergies beforehand for those kids that wanted to do this without looking.
Make this a mindful exercise by encouraging the children to focus on:
what the food feels like - what textures are there? How warm/cold is it?
what it smells like - does it remind you of anything?
how it feels in your mouth before and after biting into it - is it soft, juicy, rough?
any other body sensations - does it make your taste buds water or your stomach turn?
Coke & Mentos Experiment
If you’ve ever wanted a way to have fun with your kids in an educational way, look no further! This experiment works by the over-production of lots of carbon dioxide. As the sweets sink to the bottom of the bottle, the bubbles react with the carbon dioxide already in the drink causing a fizzy overflow of liquid!
We discovered that the number of Mentos we added to each bottle didn’t really effect the explosion, but the type of fizzy drink we used had a big effect on it.
For this experiment, you will need the following:
Several bottles of different fizzy drinks
Enough Mentos for 4-5 per bottle
Quite simply all you need to do is open the bottle and drop the Mentos in as quickly as you possibly can before jumping back and taking care not to get covered in fizz!
We did this one outside and apart from the bubbles on the concrete, it was pretty much mess-free!
Make a Terrarium
A friend bought me a terrarium 4 years ago and I’ve not once had to water it or prune it - it just survives on its own! This is a brilliant project to teach children about the water cycle (or just reuse some cool glass jars to create an awesome gift for someone!)
For this activity, you will need the following:
A clear, glass jar
Indoor plant soil
Clippings of a plant suitable for a terrarium, or a small plant bought from a garden centre
Pebbles
We started this activity by heading out on a pebble hunt. They are the first thing you add into the glass jar and they are important to ensure the soil doesn’t get really soggy. You can add big or small ones, as long as there’s something underneath the soil.
Add the soil on top.
Plant your clippings or small plant into the jar. Small hands and big jars are handy here!
You could finish this off by adding small plastic animals to really give it a rainforest feel!
Sit back and watch nature do its thing!
