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

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: 

• 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 

It’s a fun, fast-paced game without too many rules to remember

What you need: 

A deck of playing cards (even if a couple are missing)

Playing the game: 

Pass out the entire deck, one card to each player at a time, facedown.  It is okay if some players start with one more card than others.

Players take turns adding the top card in their decks to a middle pile that all players can reach easily.  Players should flip the card quickly onto the deck so as not to gain an advantage in seeing the card.

Any time a player puts a Jack on the pile, all players should try to be the first to slap a hand onto the deck.

If there is a disagreement over who touched the pile first, these players should do rocks, paper, scissors as a tiebreaker.

The player who touches the cards first (or wins rocks, paper, scissors) wins the entire middle deck and adds it to his or her pile, mixing them in so no one knows where the Jack is.

Play continues in this manner until one player has collected all of the cards.

If more than two players are in the game and a player runs out of cards, he or she can continue to try to capture cards by slapping the deck.

Activity by Robbie Hartery, Sprague Site

A flat surface works best for this version. All you’ll need is some plastic cups, a ball (rolled up socks if you don’t have one) and a hallway of some sort.

Have the kids take some time to make a pyramid. Use as many cups as you can, the bigger the pyramid, the more fun!

Have the kids roll the ball down, and knock as many cups over as possible.

Try to challenge them, maybe only give them two rolls to knock them all down, try it blindfolded, or say they have to bounce it off the wall before it reaches the cups.

This is a great activity that many children will be able to do independently. They can also take some time to decorate the cups before playing as well!

Activity by Matt McDonald, Hardy Site Coordinator
Photo Credit & Inspiration: www.whatmomslove.com

Read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom with Juila:

Some Fun Games:

• Roll a dice alphabet game: Roll the dice, then sound out one letter from under the number you rolled. Once you’ve sounded out the letter you can color that box. Continue rolling until you have sounded out and colored all of the letters.
• Use the attached uppercase and lowercase letters to help practice your letter recognition. Cut each lowercase letter out and use your uppercase letter sheet as a game board. See if you can match all of the lowercase letters to the uppercase letters and practice the sound of each letter as you match them up.
• Play a game of memory using the uppercase and lowercase letter sheets. Cut out both sets of letters, mix them up, and put them on the floor or a table letter side down. Flip over only two cards at a time and see if the letters match. If they match you can take those cards out of the game, if they don’t match you have to flip them over and put them back in their spot. Keep flipping over two cards at a time until you get all of the uppercase and lowercase letter matches. Use your memory to help you remember where certain letters are!
• Go on an outdoor letter hunt! See if you can find objects that start with each letter of the alphabet while outside on a walk or while playing in your yard. Here is an example. G for GRASS, can you find more? You can use the uppercase or lowercase letter sheet to help you keep track of the letters you find. When you find an object that starts with a letter, color in or cross off that letter so you know it’s done!
• Downloads
  • Roll and Color Alphabet Sounds
  • Uppercase and Lowercase Letters

Watch this fun singing video to help learn about the sounds that each letter makes: 

Sing along to this catchy ABC song:

What you’ll need:

• 5-15 objects from nature
• blindfold
• blanket or towel

How to play:

1. First, you need to collect your objects. Go for a nature walk and collect 5-15 objects. You can choose how challenging you want this game to be. The more objects you have, the more difficult the game will be. Try to pick objects that are distinctly different from each other. Some examples are leaves, sticks, feathers, rocks and flowers.
2. Spread out the blanket or towel on the ground and place all of the objects you found in front of you and the other players. Whichever player is guessing first should take a few minutes to memorize the objects.
3. Put the blindfold on the person who is guessing. Then, Take away one of the objects.
4. Once one of the objects has been removed, the player who is blindfolded can take off their blindfold and guess which object is missing.
5. Once the player guesses correctly, put the missing object back on the blanket or towel and play again. Take turns guessing and taking away objects.

Here are some ways to make the game more challenging:

1. Play the game backwards by adding objects, one by one, instead of taking them away.
2. Take away more than 1 object and see if the player who is guessing can figure out all of the objects that are missing.
3. Leave the blindfold on while the player is guessing. This way, the guesser has to guess which object is missing by touching them instead of looking at them.
4. To make this game a little more competitive, if you’re playing with 3 or more players, blindfold all of the players (except the one who is taking away the objects) and then see who can think of the missing object first. 

Activity by Steph Finucane, Upham Site
Photo Credit & Inspiration: www.rainorshinemamma.com

Materials:

• Cardboard frisbees (see how to make them below!)
• Sticks (these will be placed in the ground to mark the hole)
• Cones/something to mark off the tee box (the starting point)
• Small pieces of paper, you will write numbers 1-3 on them.

Making your Cardboard Frisbee:

1. 2. 3. 4.

How to Play:

1. In your backyard, take your small sticks and place them in a parent or guardian approved spot. Mark them with a ‘1’, ‘2’, or ‘3’.
2. The ‘1’ should be closer to the tee box, but not to close. The ‘3’ should be the farthest away. The ‘2’ should be in the middle.
3. Move back to the tee box where you will take your frisbees from earlier and toss them towards the first hole marker. 
4. If you hit the stick marking the first hole, you just got a hole in 1, congrats!
5. If you miss, go to where your frisbee landed and try again. Keep going until you hit the stick marking hole 1. Record your score.
6. Go back to the tee box and go for hole 2 and then hole 3.
7. You may need to use the smaller cardboard frisbee for shorter shots or larger for longer ones. You will figure that out as your play.
8. Move the tee box and the holes around to keep the fun going!

Activity by Stephen Pfaff, Floating Teacher

Materials:

• Empty tin cans
• Paint & paint brushes
• A ball

Steps: 

1. Begin by making sure your tin cans are empty and clean! Wash them off and then make sure they are dry.
2. Next, paint your tin cans! You can paint them different colors, add some designs or even paint them the same colors. Paint them however you would like!
3. After that, it is now time to wait for them to dry.
4. Once the paint is dry, it is now time to play! Set them up in your yard or driveway. You can set them up like bowling pins or you can stack them on top of each other like a pyramid. Try to knock them down with a ball of your choice!

Activity by Kelly Moy, Schofield Site
Photo Credit and Adapted From: www.agirlandagluegun.com

Materials: 

• Chalk
• Sponges
• A bucket of water

Steps:

1. Start by drawing out your game board! Your game board will look very similar to a dart board. Start by drawing one small circle then keep going by drawing circles around it. Make sure to leave plenty of space between the circles though.
2. For each circle, assign an amount of points. Typically, the smallest circle is worth the most points since it is the hardest to get.
3. After you are finished with your game board, it’s time to get playing! Gather some sponges and a bucket of water. Wet your sponges and start throwing! Keep track of your points on the side by writing them down with chalk.
4. After 5 rounds, add all of your points up! Then keep playing!

Another fun way to do this during the summer is to use water balloons instead of sponges!

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