Indoor adventures
Keeping creative minds out of the biscuit tin!
Although in the UK it’s not looking too likely this week - here are some ideas to balance the last HatchEd post - rainy day summer activities this time.
Invent something
Design a useless invention that solves a problem nobody has (‘The Automatic Biscuit Dunking Stability Analyser’)
Create a board game in a day, then test it with family.
Build a miniature escape room inside a shoebox.
Invent a new sport using household objects and write the official rulebook.
Create a secret code and teach it to someone.
Creative writing
Rewrite a fairy tale as a corporate email chain.
Produce a newspaper from an alternate universe.
Write terrible advice columns on purpose.
Create an entire fictional town complete with history, gossip, maps and local legends.
Film & media challenges
Make a silent film that follows the storyline of a blockbuster from the last 5 years.
Recreate a famous film scene with socks or Lego.
Produce a ‘nature documentary’ narrated about pets, houseplants, or siblings.
Film a fake museum tour explaining completely made-up historical artefacts. (Somebody actually did this in an Art Gallery recently!)
Design projects
Design and print a magazine (interviews, puzzles, comics, reviews).
Build an architectural model of an impossible house.
Design packaging for products that don’t exist.
Create an illustrated field guide to imaginary creatures.
Science
Build a Rube Goldberg / Heath Robinson style machine (first research Rube Goldberg and Heath Robinson!)
Make homemade musical instruments and compare their acoustics.
Design paper gliders and conduct proper aerodynamic testing.
Art
Paint with coffee, tea or spices instead of paint.
Design a deck of beautifully illustrated playing cards.
Spend a week creating a personal museum:
Collect or invent-
mysterious objects
labelled specimens
bizarre inventions
portraits of fictional people
By the end, visitors receive a ticket and take the full tour.
Mystery challenge
Create a locked-room mystery for the family.
Include:
evidence
suspects
fake newspaper clippings
hidden clues
coded messages
red herrings
The investigation should take about an hour.
Engineering competitions
Construct a bridge from paper that holds books.
Make a marble run from cardboard.
Build a catapult with rubber bands and test accuracy.
Design the strongest paper chair for a toy figure
Big collaborative projects
The most memorable activities often last several rainy afternoons:
Write and illustrate a 100-page graphic novel.
Build an entire fantasy world with maps, languages and history.
Make a feature-length stop-motion film.
Build a giant cardboard city.
Most of all have fun! ☀️
Thank you for reading. I’m now about to take a week off - so I’ll see you back here at the very end of July. I hope you are enjoying the summer sunshine and relaxing as much as possible.