rainy day ideas #2

i thought i'd share some more fun activities we've been enjoying in our school time. i'm always adding more to my running list of what things were really fun and we could easily pull out on rainy days (or just plain bored days). for more rainy day ideas go here.

• writing in rice or cornmeal: i poured some uncooked rice onto a cookie sheet and let rachel show off the letters we'd been learning together. this was a much bigger hit than i anticipated (i mean, how often do you get to really play with your food?). if your child doesn't know letters yet, shapes work well, too. or just whatever designs they want!

• salt and sugar science experiment: rachel put drops of water onto some salt and sugar cubes to see what would happen. i have to admit, it was pretty fascinating to see the sugar cube collapse in on itself. this was one day i was actually disappointed it wasn't raining because we could've watched what the raindrops could have done to the salt and sugar.

• hard-boiled egg decorating: who says you can only do this at easter time? we made our own hard-boiled humpty dumpties! it was super easy and clean because we only used magic marker for the decorating.

rachel made a mr. and mrs. humpty dumpty

and when the decorating is done, it's snack time!

• gas-fueled paper airplanes: daddy got in on the action for this one. after learning about solids, liquids, and gases (which is beautifully demonstrated by melting ice cubes and then boiling the water until it turns to steam) we made our own gas- (CO2 from our lungs) fueled paper airplane. just tape your paper airplane to a balloon that you blow up (but don't tie) and let 'er fly.

unfortunately, our first prototype gas-fueled itself straight to the floor. this inspired a google search of how to make a good paper airplane. once our plane was ready for take off everyone (including yours truly) got to perfect their paper airplane-throwing technique. rachel got pretty good there at the end.

• storm-watching: if your rainy day happens to be a thunder stormy day, it may be nice to just sit back, watch the lightning, snuggle through the thunder, and talk about how big and strong our God is.

hope your rainy day turns out to be a special one!