Supplies:

• Wide bowl or pie plate 
• About 1 inch of milk
• Food coloring 
• Dawn dish soap
• Q-tips

Steps: 

1. Pour about 1 inch of milk in the bottom of the bowl or pie plate.
2. Drop different colors of food coloring into the milk, spacing the food coloring drops so that the drops don’t touch.
3. Pour about ¼ cup of Dawn dish soap into a bowl. Dip the q-tip into the Dawn.
4. Next, touch the milk anywhere with the q-tip (only touch the milk with the q-tip, not the food coloring). You can keep touching the milk in all different spots.
5. Watch the food coloring react.

Why does this happen?

Activity by Cheryl Moy, Bates Site
Photo Credit & Inspiration: www.livinglifeandlearning.com

Supplies:

• Lemons
• Baking soda
• Food coloring
• Dish soap
• Plate or bowl
• Fork

Steps:

1. Have an adult help cut some lemons in half. Place one half of a lemon onto a plate or bowl.
2. Take your fork and poke the top of the lemon in different sections. This will help create the volcano eruption.
3. Next, take your food coloring and place droplets around the top of the lemon. Use different colors in different sections if you want a colorful volcano or just use one color!
4. Add some dish soap across the top of the lemon. Then sprinkle a generous amount of baking soda on top! Use your fork again to get the baking soda down into the rest of the lemon.
5. Now watch as your lemon volcano erupts! Want a bigger reaction? Take the other half of the lemon and squeeze the juice onto the volcano.

Activity by Kelly Moy, Schofield Site
Photo Credit & Inspiration: www.littlebinsforlittlehands.com

Supplies Needed:

• Recycled toilet paper rolls
• Tissue paper
• Google-y eyes
• Dowel rods or chopsticks. A stick collected from nature would work too!
• Tape or Glue
• Construction paper
• Pipe cleaners (one per critter)
  

Steps:

Step One:

• Cut the paper roll down to the size you’d like your critter to be

Step Two:

• Fold your tissue paper in half 
• Cut a section off; approximately about an inch
• Fringe one section of the tissue paper leaving around 1cm gap at the top
• Unfold the fringed paper then cut into lengths long enough to wrap around the paper roll

Step Three:

• Place a piece of tape (or glue) along each section of your fringed paper
• Stick to the paper roll to look like an animal’s fur
• Layer the pieces of tissue paper over the top of each other around the paper roll, until you have completely covered it in “tissue paper fur”
  

Step Four:

• Fold a piece of your construction paper in half and sketch a large heart shape for the wings
• Cut pieces of pipe cleaner for antennae and tape (or glue) those on
• Tape (or glue) the Googly eyes, and heart shapes into place
• Tape (or glue) the dowel rod or chopstick into place at the bottom of the roll
  

Just look at this picture of Rachel’s daughter!

Materials Needed:

• A tennis or badminton racket you don’t mind getting bubble-y (a fly swatter works too)
• A large tray, big bowl or bucket (big enough to fit your racquet or swatter in).
  • Trays work great for this since you can lay the racquet in it rather than making a giant bowl of liquid!
• Dish soap & water to make your bubble liquid

How To:

1. Mix some dish soap and water in a big bowl or bucket. Use more soap than water, filling the bowl just enough to dip a tennis racket in.
2. Bring your bowl outside and dip your racket into the bubble mixture. The racket doesn’t need to be completely submerged.
3. Have fun!
   1. Blow bubbles through the racket.
   2. Try swinging your racket fast and slow to make different size bubbles!
   3. Pop and catch your bubbles with your racket.
   4. Play your favorite dancing tune and dance in your bubbles.
   5. Have fun making it rain bubbles!

Here are all three of Rachel’s kids having fun!

Activity by Rachel Jong, Hardy Site

 

Required Materials:

• Pipe cleaners
• Bubble liquid

Optional (but Recommended) Materials:

• Pony beads (to make a patriotic one choose red, white and blue beads)
• A cookie cutter (to make a patriotic one try a star-shaped cookie cutter)

Directions:

1. Wrap the pipe cleaner gently around the cookie cutter until the pipe cleaner is molded into the shape of the cutter (note: if it loses its shape at any point, simply place it back on the cookie cutter to get the shape again!).
   1. If you don’t have a cookie cutter just carefully shape your pipe cleaner.
2. Attach a straight pipe cleaner onto the shaped one; now you’ve made your wand!
3. Add the pony beads to your wand in any pattern you would like, and secure them at the bottom by looping the last bead around the pipe cleaner. This step is just for looks – you can skip it if you don’t have beads!
4. Ask your parent for a small bowl with some bubble solution and enjoy a day of bubble blowing in the summer!

Activity by Stephanie Zafferano, Fiske Site
Photo Credit & Inspiration: www.iheartcraftythings.com

Practice your footwork with this perfect rainy day activity!

Things you need:

• A lot of space
• Tape (we recommend using masking tape or painter’s tape for easy removal after)
• Ball

How to:

1. Make a maze-like course that you will have to run the ball through on the floor with tape. 
2. Once the tape is laid down, you have to keep the ball in between the tape.
3. You can time yourself or add any twist you want! You can even make a new course once you have mastered your first!

Activity by Rachel Scanlan, Bates Site
Photo Source: www.pinterest.com

Materials:

• Rocks
• Tempura Paint 
• Paint brushes
• Sharpies (optional)

Instructions:

1. Decide which animal you want to make. For example if it is a giraffe you will need enough rocks to make head, body, legs, and a looooooong neck.
2. After you collect a bunch of rocks lay them out so that they are in the shape of your animal. Seeing the shape laid out will also help you decide how you want to paint and what details you want to add.
3. Keeping your animal in its shape, begin painting the rocks one at a time. This way you won’t lose track of which body part you are on, especially if you are adding details like only 4 spots for the rocks that make up the neck, and 5 on the spots that are part of the body.
4. Once the paint dries you can add details using your sharpie or another paint color, like the giraffe’s spots.
5. Once they are all painted and dry, mix them up or put them in a bag and see if another member of your family can solve your puzzle!
6. There are so many different things you can create with painted rocks, the giraffe puzzle is just one idea, you could make another human, an animal, a bunch of letters to build names or words, and even characters!

Activity by Amanda Cardinal, Upham Site
Photo Credit & Inspiration: www.hellowonderful.co

Materials: 

• Chalk
• Bean Bags 
• Large sidewalk/ Driveway area

Instructions: 

1. Draw a bunch of circles that are spaced a foot or two apart and big enough for a bean bag to fit in with some extra room.
2. Inside each circle write a point value, targets that are further from the throwing point should be worth more points! You can also make different shapes and sizes for targets, making them smaller will make it more difficult!
3. Using your bean bags, try to aim them into your targets! If you are playing with someone, use 3-5 bean bags each, and each person can only get 1 bean bag per hole (for example if your hardest target is worth 25 points, you can only get credit for one of your bean bags landing in it). Determine your rules before hand about landing it in the target- if it is halfway in the target will it still count or will it be worth half the points?
4. Tally your points for all the bean bags that landed inside a circle, the person with the most points wins!

Activity by Amanda Cardinal, Upham Site
Photo Credit & Inspiration: www.whatmomslove.com