Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, July 15, 1993 TAG: 9307150451
SECTION: PARENT'S GUIDE PAGE: PGS-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By SARAH COX
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Idealistically, rainy days can be a time of creativity, a time to pull out all the old-fashioned stand-bys such as hide-and-seek, dress-up and playacting.
Two local authorities on the subject - one a former teacher, the other a licensed clinical social worker who works with children - have donated ideas that will last at least a year of rainy days.
Martha Nicholas taught kindergarten for nine years before deciding to stay at home full time with her two children, who are now four years old and 19 months. She also takes care of two other children, a four-year-old girl and a 14-month-old boy.
That's a house full on a rainy day, but Nicholas is not daunted. She said that a half-hour spent with them is enough for the children - even they get tired of mommy and want to go off by themselves. But for that half-hour . . .
Nicholas suggested shaving cream, even for the baby. "Just spray and let them go," she said.
Let's back up and qualify. Do this in the kitchen, and spray it on the kitchen table. She also suggested putting old shirts on them. Nicholas said the children love to make pictures in the shaving cream, draw, write their names and make fingerprints. The end result, she said, is that their hands smell great and "it cleans the table, too."
Another version of this is to make finger paint with instant pudding, which is safe if children start licking their fingers.
"At school, we did this with numbers and practiced writing; pencils and paper can get boring, too." Nicholas, along this same order, suggested finger-painting with regular finger paints and an easel, but cautioned that one should use newspapers spread out on the floor as well as a smock.
Pasta comes next. Nicholas said you can let your children play with any kind of pasta. Put a bottle of rubbing alcohol in a bowl, add a few drops of food coloring - to the color intensity you want - and put the pasta in, with a spoon, stirring until the pasta is a nice color.
The alcohol won't make the pasta mushy, like water will. When it's a nice color, let it air dry. Afterward, store it in a bag and pull it out for a rainy day. The children can make necklaces by stringing pasta on yarn or ribbons; they can paste the pasta on magnets, covered with poster board shapes; and they can do patterning and sorting of shapes, colors, sizes and numbers.
Nicholas said that recently she purchased a waterwheel sand toy for her gang and used it, indoors, with rice. Just put the rice on a cookie sheet, she said, and "let them go. We did have rice all over the kitchen, but messes don't bother me that much. I put out measuring cups, and the four-year-old made roads through the rice with a car," said Nicholas.
Nicholas also said she rotates toys, storing some away while the children play with others. A rainy day is a good time to switch and let them play with the ones they haven't seen in months.
Another fallback is the library. She said they get videos at the library, come home and have a picnic lunch in front of the TV.
Or, they've made forts. And this is something you probably don't need directions to do, as long as you have chairs, tables, sheets and blankets. Nicholas said sometimes they have picnics in the forts.
Another activity is cooking, such as making cookies. The children can stir, help measure, dump the ingredients in the bowl and lick the spoon. She uses this opportunity to talk about baking and some basic science facts.
While you're in the kitchen, you can also make modeling clay.She said she's come across many modeling clay recipes, but she thinks the following one is the best.
Take 2 cups flour, 1 cup of salt, 4 teaspoons cream of tartar, 2 tablespoons cooking oil and 2 cups of water. Cook all of this over medium heat until it is thick and doughy, stirring constantly. Pour onto a surface and knead until it cools. You can either add drops of food coloring now, dividing the clay into color groups, or you could have added it while the clay was still on the stove if you wanted just one color. Store the clay in an airtight container.
And if the children are still energized and need to get their ya-yas out, try dancing. Nicholas plays Hap Palmer records, or lets the children record their own voices into the tap player.
Beverly Barton, a licensed clinical social worker at the Lewis-Gale Clinic, specializes in child and adolescent therapy. She has a number of suggestions, many of which are focused on helping children express their feelings.
Sponge painting is fun and not too messy. You can simply cut an everyday sponge into shapes you like, and use fabric paint. Dip the sponge into the paint, and let the children decorate their own T-shirts, make designs on cardboard or paper, or even make a "feelings pillowcase."
Barton also suggests using modeling clay to make jewelry or anything else. When it dries, the children can decorate it with paints and glitter. This makes a nice gifts, too.
To get the children's bodies and brains moving, try charades. Barton said that what she does is use the regular charades game, focusing on a book, song or movie, but you can choose any category the children can handle.
Divide the children into teams, and get them to write down their ideas on scraps of paper. A person from the opposite team then chooses an idea and tries to act it out - not using any words. Their team has to guess what that idea is within a certain time limit, and you get one point for each idea guessed. Barton said they can hold up the number of fingers for how many words are in the title or idea, convey the number of syllables in each word, and use gestures to express what that word sounds like.
The car game is another guessing situation. Everyone writes down a feeling and puts their ideas in a bag. There are two teams, and Barton said it works better if there are at least three on each team (this is serious rainy day time).
Form a "car" with four chairs, two in front and two in back, and have one team sit in the car. The other team dictates what kind of car they're in, where they're going, who they are, etc. Each occupant, or traveler, has to act out their feeling without using the word they wrote down, and they do this through conversations with their fellow travelers. The onlooking team must then guess the feelings.
Barton also suggested putting on a play from a favorite story. The children can dress up, practice their parts and act it out. The same goes for a talent show, where acrobatics and lip-sinking can become part of the act.
Or tie-dye. Barton, who professes not to be an expert at this, said the basics are as follows. Assemble T-shirts, Rit dye and rubber bands. Prepare the dye according to directions - Barton said the dye water must be extremely hot. Bunch up material on the shirt, rubber-band it in several places and dip it into the dye. She said it's fun to experiment. You can dye the entire shirt one color, and once it dries, tie-dye it in several places with other colors.
The list of rainy day games goes on. Some more suggestions from Barton include reading books; starting a journal; writing a story with each child telling one segment; making puppets out of socks, buttons and sewing odds and ends; or having a tea party.
You can also plan a party for a sunny day or make a hat out of anything. Try making a dream house - this can be done as a family, using old boxes, straws, toilet paper rolls and other recyclables. You can draw feelings using colors to express them or make a terrarium.
With these ideas in mind, your children will look forward to rainy days.
by CNB