Even in summer time rain can invite itself on your holidays and you may have to put up with it! When you are far away from your own place, it’s not easy to find activities for children which don’t need too may accessories.

How do you keep your children busy on a rainy day during the holidays? Here are just a few ideas for family activities on a rainy day:

Bake a cake : Le gâteau au yaourt

We love this really easy-to-bake cake in France because you don’t need a measuring bowl or a set of scales: you use the yoghurt pot to measure all the ingredients! Here’s the recipe:

• 1 flavoured yoghurt (keep the pot)
• 3 yoghurt pots of flour
• 2 and a half yoghurt pots of sugar
• 1/2 yoghurt pot of vegetable oil (sunflower is the best)
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 baking powder sachet

You can add fruit if you want, for example, 2 apples or a can of pineapple or peaches in syrup.
Put all the ingredients in a salad bowl, mix them all together and then put the mixture in an oven proof dish. Let it cook for 40 to 45 minutes, with the oven at thermostat 6 (which is 180°).
Once the cake has cooled, you can cut it in half and put jam or chocolate in it, or serve it with custard or pouring cream.

La pâte à sel (Home made modelling paste)

Cheap and safe (no problems if it ends up being ingested!), la pâte à sel is also very easy to prepare as the only ingredients you’ll need can be found in every supermarket: just flour and salt!
The recipe is simple:

• 1 measure of salt
• 2 measures of flour
• 1 measure of tepid water

Mix the flour and salt and add water until you get a non-sticky paste. Let the mixture sit for an hour.

You can add spices to colour the paste, such as paprika, curcuma, cinnamon etc…
Let your creations dry for at least 24 hours, and then cook them slowly (oven 110° for 1h30 minimum)

Once they are dry and cooked, you can paint them.

A paper planes race

For this activity, all you need is sheets of paper! Create your paper plane and decorate it.
Prepare the race area with start and stop points and there you go, start throwing your planes and just watch who the winner is!

The mystery bag

Nothing simpler and cheaper than this activity as you’ll have nothing to buy!

Grab everything you find around you, from outside and inside: a pine cone, a stone, a piece of wood, a spoon, a hair brush, a tube of toothpaste, a key, a pen, a button, a nut… and put all of these items in a bag or in a box. Make sure no one can see through the bag.

The game is easy: in (for example) 1 minute you have to name as many objects as you can just by touching them, without looking. You can play one by one or create teams.

It’s always great to leave our own country to discover another one, and of course we all want to bring back souvenirs for friends, family and for ourselves!

But these commercial souvenirs are often not very personal – sometimes they are not even made in the country and they can be so expensive!

Here is a list of our home-made souvenirs that you could bring back home after your holiday! Special souvenirs that you can create with your children, who will be so proud to give them to their Grandparents or friends!

A decorated pebble:

In Normandy, a lot of beaches are shingly ones. What a great present to put on a desk: a painted pebble from a Normandy beach! Children can paint them with their fingers – fingerprints make beautiful flower petals.

You also can pick up wild flowers in the fields, let them dry, glue them on to the pebble, then spray some varnish to protect them.

But be careful, you don’t have the right to collect pebbles on every beach so check the signs before you do it – you don’t want your holiday souvenir to be the day you got a ticket for collecting forbidden shingle.

An herbarium:

Very easy to create, even for a child! An herbarium is a very nice way to remember where you were, with leaves, and flowers you have collected on holiday!

After you cleaned the dirt or mud off the leaves, just put your finds between 2 paper tissues or toilet paper sheets and then leave them in a book to make them flat. Let them dry over several days. When they are dry you can glue them into a notebook and write the name of the flower or tree and where you found it. You can add pictures you took of the place and write the way you felt when you were there. It’s a great way to teach your children to express their feelings!

And a beautiful flower from a French meadow glued on a nice piece of paper will make a wonderful bookmark to give to friends and family back home!

A family travel diary:

The label of the camembert cheese you ate, the sweetie wrapper, leaves, entrance tickets to a special place you went to visit as a family…. Every little thing can be a big part of a great memory album done with the whole family!

Choose a beautiful notebook or a filing case (easier if you need to add a sheet) and as you visit places don’t forget to write what you see or learn. Your eldest children can write as the youngest can draw or decorate the sheets.

When you go to visit a castle or to the beach for example, don’t forget to take paper and pencils with you and ask your children to draw what they see and add the drawings to your diary.
Every evening, one of the family member can be in charge of the day resumé. Yes, even the youngest! You’ll be amazed to discover that sometimes what your children keep in mind can be so different to your memories!

A shell, a stone or a piece of wood, a drawing, sand, nature gives us so many beautiful things – go on, be creative!

And don’t forget that the simplest gift chosen with love is the most beautiful present for the one you choose to give it to!