We had a particularly wet Monday recently here at Crawford Childcare. The rain was very heavy and didn’t stop for a moment. We don’t usually shy away when there’s a bit of rain here but under such extreme weather conditions we think it is better for the children to enjoy summer camp indoors. There is no way rain is stopping play however.
We gathered some boxes and asked the children what they would like to make. Perhaps inspired by all the wet weather they decided on an aquarium. All the children joined in to help paint the box. Lily said “we need to paint the inside blue for the fish to swim around”. She asked her friends if they could help her paint because it was a big job. Luke was painting the outside of the box orange because he said “orange is like the sand and the sun”. He thought it was a good idea to stand on a chair so he could reach the top of the box to paint it.
This took nearly all morning but while some of the children were making the aquarium others were cutting out mermaid and mermen tails so we could stick them to our feet and pretend to swim like fish in the ocean. Abigail put her expert cutting skills to work and she started helping her friends cut out their tails. We decorated them with paint, glitter, ribbon and crepe paper and every child had a different way of decorating their tails which we loved!
Later on in the day when our painted aquarium was dry we stuck sand and sea shells to the bottom of the box and we made jellyfish and sea creatures to put in our aquarium. We still have lots of new ideas to add to our aquarium and we didn’t have time to complete it all in just one day so we will keep adding to it over the summer. Days inside are sometimes just as fun as being outdoors! The smallest of ideas can turn into ongoing projects like ours but let’s hope Mr. Sun will stay out for the rest of the summer anyway.