Wednesday, 26 August 2009

It's never too wet (or cold) to play!


Playing outdoors is brilliant - whatever the weather, as this recent article on the BBC website reminded us.

Why not get some funky wellies and a bright waterproof on and have a splashing time with these ideas:

  • Stomp through pools of water – who can make the biggest splash?
  • Make up a ‘singing in the rain’ dance routine
  • Hand out disposable waterproof cameras to capture the magic of the rain including water droplets, cloud shapes and colours, reflections in puddles and amazing rainbows. Make a rainy day photo album
  • If you’re wet already, get drenched even more with water balloon challenges and soggy sponge dodging
  • Pitch a tent in your garden when rain is forecast. You'll stay nice and dry when the rain starts, but you can enjoy the sound of the raindrops hitting the tent. Get cosy, tell rainy day stories, sing rainy songs like ‘Itsy Witsy spider’ and play games
  • Collect rain water and add colours to paint the pavement when rain is expected – watch the colours blend and wash away. Or dust powder paint onto thick cardboard and watch what happens
  • Look in the garden to find creatures who love being out in the rain too – go on a wiggly worm hunt!
Just don't forget to warm up when you're done!

Thursday, 13 August 2009

Playday


Eureka! celebrated Playday earlier this month. The day is an annual celebration of children's right to play and 100s of events took play all over the country. Eureka! marked the event in typical style with lots of opportunities for play at the museum, indoors and out.

The organisers behind Playday revealed that
72% of parents want more time to play with their children or to take them places to play (opinion poll conducted by ICM).

At Eureka! play is at the heart of what we do and Playday was a great chance to demonstrate our commitment to play by encouraging all our staff to make time to play. It was the perfect opportunity to spend half an hour escaping the pressures of our daily lives and experiencing the positive effects of play, something we tend to lose sight of as adults.

It was great to see so many children, parents and grandparents getting stuck into play, as well as staff - even our CEO Leigh-Anne Stradeski had a bounce on a spacehopper!