Free Museums: Way More Choice Than You'd Think And How To Really Watch Seeds Grow

Local Museum

Local museums are often free to enter and ask for only a donation, just pay as much as you feel able too. If there isn't one in your area you could try a trip to a larger town or city. Money Saving Expert has a great interactive list here of all the free museum’s and galleries in the UK (scroll down past the map of the UK for drop down area menus). There's a huge variety on offer from pumping stations and Victorian police cells, to modern art and dinosaurs.

Watch Seeds Grow

You will need:

• A clear glass or plastic cup
• A seed (sunflower or beans work really well)
• Thick absorbent paper or blotting paper
• Scissors
• Cotton wool
• Water

How to do it:

• Roll a tube with your paper, cutting it to shape so that it will fit inside the cup from the base to the rim all the way around, put it in place.
• Stuff the inside of the paper tube with loosely packed cotton wool.
• Place your seed in between the paper and the inside of the cup about 2/3rds of the way up, so that you can see it from the outside.
• Pour water into the cotton wool, so that the water level inside the cup is about 1/3^rd of the cup (don’t cover the seed), and all the paper and cotton wool stays damp.
• Put the cup somewhere dark and leave the seed to grow.
• You can check on the seed every few days to see how well it is growing as well as topping up the water. As the buds at the top develop into a small plant with leaves the plant will start to need light and it’s time to move the plant into a flowerpot.

Why You Should Go To The Library and How To Make Rain A Bit More Exciting

Libraries

Last week saw the opening of Story Lab this year's Summer Reading challenge! Encourage your kids to read 6 new books over the summer and they could win prizes! Younger children can earn certificates too with the Bookstart Bear Club.

Libraries are brilliant - they're free, warm, dry and keep rotating their stock regularly. The staff are keen to help and if you're utterly forgetful like me ask about fines - many authorities don't charge for overdue returns on children's books anymore.

Have a look at the noticeboards too, library story time sessions often still run over summer and sometimes they have extra weekday activities too, ours offers a range of afternoon craft sessions either for free or a small £1 charge.

Libraries have internet access, sometimes free, particularly for children. As well as: computer skills courses for adults; puzzle, magazine and book swapping stations; daily newspapers; child friendly reference books for when you want something a little more succinct than wikipedia; access to information about local services and plans; dvd rental; large print and audiobooks; board books for babies; colouring to keeping small children entertained while you browse and automated machines so your child can check books in and out themselves.

Plus hundreds of new stories for both the kids and you to get stuck into.

Make a Rain Catcher

You will need:

• A plastic bottle
• A stick or wooden spoon
• Scissors
• Sticky tape
• Pens and a permanent marker
• String, wool or fabric strips
• A small spade
• Ruler 
• Notebook and Pen

How to make it:

• Cut the bottom off your plastic bottle and throw it away, you want the top section with the lid screwed on tightly.Where you have cut through the plastic the edge may be jaggered and sharp - try covering it over with sticky tape.
• Decorate the bottle with the pens and the top of your stick with knots of colourful wool or fabric.
• Use the ruler to make marks every 1cm along the length of the stick.
• Dig a small hole in the garden and put your plastic bottle inside, lid down.
• Wait for it to rain. Once water has collected inside you can put your stick inside and count how many marks the water has covered to see how much it has rained.

Take it further:

• Can you collect more rain in different parts of the garden, or in different shaped containers?
• Where do you see animals in your garden (slugs, snails, frogs, foxes, cats) and is more rain collected where they like to be or less?  
• Use the internet to compare rainfall in your garden with average amounts for the area or country.
• Decorate the wooden spoon water-measurer as a person.