101 Things for kids to do on a rainy day – Dawn Isaac book review

When I first started this blog, I wanted it to be a place where people would come for ideas and inspiration. I wanted to share things that we do and inspire others. A number of my most recent posts have reflected that too like the 64 things to do in autumn post or the What to do in Peterborough this October half term. So when the opportunity to review Dawn Isaac’s latest book, 101 things for kids to do on a rainy day, came up, how could I possibly resist?

With owning her 2 previous book releases, I had high hopes for this one too and I wasn’t disappointed.

 “Just because it’s raining doesn’t mean you can just sit there gawping at the screen, you know. Not when you could be indoor camping, setting up a living room obstacle course, holding a butter making race, Building a dolls house, learning magic tricks, creating your own jigsaw, exploding a volcano, mixing up bath paints, playing hands free ping pong, growing a scrap garden (and 91 more utterly amazing ideas that wont fit on the back cover)”

And she’s right too, the ideas in this book are utterly amazing, some of them every day ideas with a twist and some things I know I wouldn’t have thought of in a month of Sundays.

I mean, take the butter making race for example, would you have thought of that?
All you need is some cream and a clean empty jar each. Put the cream in the jar and shake constantly for about 5 minutes until it has turned into butter. Simple! Celebrate your success by spreading your fresh new butter on some toast and you have a snack too! I mean, talk about Genius! 

The book contains all sorts of activities from crafts to games and projects to experiments. No screens or gadgets in sight so it really gets the kids using their imagination and playing. There literally are ideas suitable for almost everyone in here.
I’m particularly looking forward to making the solar system mobile for Dexter’s room. Especially as he has glow in the dark stars on the ceiling and now has new space themed bedding with rockets and planets on.

At the back of the book there is a section where the activities have been cleverly sorted in to categories so you can easily find something to suit your child’s personality or mood, or even the occasion, including a category for younger children which contains things like grow an eggcup micro garden, have an indoor snowball fight and play flap the fish.

If you’re looking for a quick project theres a category for that too along with other categories for scientists, cooks and perfect present ideas.

I could happily go through every one of the gems within this book but I don’t want to give them all away. What I will say though, is if you are a parent or childminder, aunt, uncle or grandparent and you ever have one of those days where you just don’t know what to do with the kids, this book is most certainly for you. I recommend it whole heartily. Even for when its not raining!!

Behind the author.

I’ve mentioned Dawn Isaac on my blog once before after meeting her back in April. She has 3 children of her own (you’ll see them in most of the pictures in the book) and is also an RHS Chelsea medal winning garden designer. She’s written two other fabulous books, she writes a fantastic blog over at LittleGreenFingers  and also writes for The Guardian, The Telegraph, Good Housekeeping and The Garden. She is the horticultural advisor on CBeebies’ award winning show Mr Bloom’s Nursery and runs design courses in associations with Mumsnet Academy.