When my son was in at the optometrists this week, the woman filling his prescription asked him, “What did you do today?”
He looked at her, thought about it and then said, “Played in flour.”
She looked at me confused and then continued to question him. Where did you play with flour? at school? Nope, at home. Oh, were you helping mommy bake?
When I said, no, I just put flour play out for him for something to do, she went silent, looked at me like I had sprouted an extra set of eyes and changed the subject. I was a little surprised by the response and it made me think about some rainy day activities that would be great to post here.
Sometimes, like today obviously, they won’t seem too imaginative but as I realized this week, sometimes you never think of doing things because it just isn’t the normal thing to do. Flour play seems like an activity that you would do at school, not at home and it seems peculiar to do it.
If you do flour play, you should think about the mess. Flour play is messy and I mean, messy. There is flour on seats, on tables, on clothes that the kids manage to smear on every couch and bed on the way to the bathroom. I often find that the clean up lasts a good half hour to an hour but the smile on my son’s face when he is done is worth the effort.
Now that I have given you ample warning; all you will need for flour play is a cookie sheet or other large container where the flour can lay flat and the flour. Make it more interesting by placing animals, cars, soldiers or kitchen utensils in it.
The flour offers an interesting texture that is cool and soft. It can be flattened so it is smooth, built up to provide snow drifts for soldiers to hide behind and it can also be drawn in. There is a lot that you can do with flour play and I have seen kids sit for a good hour playing with flour and adults even longer when they play beside them.
So my first Rainy Day Activity is all about flour and I hope you have fun playing in it.
Sirena Van Schaik
