CHILDRENS CORNER

Things to Do

1. Seaweed Picture

Collect as many different kinds of seaweed as you can - purple, pink, bright green, dark green, black, white. Find nice shapes and take them home and rinse them in the sink to get any sand off. Leave the seaweed in a big bowl of clean water to soak for a few hours. Then lift each piece carefully out of the basin and place on a towel to get rid of any excess water.

Next you will need to press the seaweed to flatten it and dry it out using either a flower press or a big book. If you use a book lay the seaweed between two sheets of kitchen paper between the pages of the book. Put a few books or some weights on top of the book with the seaweed in it and leave to dry out for a week or two.

When the seaweed is completely dry use it to make designs on a piece of card, sticking it down with glue.

2. Frame Weaving

Collect four straight-ish pieces of driftwood 10-20cm long. Lay them out in a square or rectangle. Using string bind them together securely at each corner to make a frame. Cut a very long piece of string and starting at one end, loop around the frame lengthways to make a warp (as on a loom). Each time you go around the top or the bottom wind the string around the frame once as this helps to keep it tight. When you get to the end, loop the string around the end and tie in a knot to hold the warp in place. You may want to get an adult to help you make the frame.

Collect heather, grasses, pieces of fleece, lichen and anything else you can find to weave. Think about the colours and try and get some contrast. Then start weaving.

Starting at the bottom, weave a piece of wool or grass, for example, over one string and under the next until you get to the other side. Do a few rows of one thing and then change and weave something different. Carry on like this until you get to the top of the frame. When you have finished tie a piece of string across the top of the frame so that you can hang your picture up.

3. Beach Sculpture.

Collect interesting bits of wood, pebbles, shells, pieces of rope or other bits of flotsam and jetsam to make an interesting pattern on the beach. The following are examples of the kind of thing you can do: 

* make a big spiral out of pebbles and stones, starting in the middle with small light coloured pebbles. Then as you go round, the pebbles get gradually larger and gradually darker until at the end you have big, dark pebbles. 

* make a star shape using shells. Using one kind of shell make the outline and then fill in using different kinds of shell. You can frame your picture using pieces of driftwood or rope.
 
*with different kinds of rope that you find make a long snake, snaking its way along the beach, or a snail coiling the rope round.

* make a big junk monster using all the different kinds of junk you can find - bottles, buoys, ropes.

Take a photo of your creation.

Games to Play on the Beach

1 . Build a big mound of sand and put a shell or pebble on the top. Take it in turns to scoop away a handful of sand without knocking down the shell. The person who knocks down the shell has to build the next mound.

2. Each person to collect five pebbles in one colour. One person can have grey, one can have white etc etc. Find a big pebble which can be the target. Draw a starting line in the sand and put the target pebble ten steps in front of the starting line. Take it in turns to throw a little pebble at the target. See how close you can get.

3. Make a treasure island picture in the sand - with forest, village, rocks, cave and so on. Bury some treasure and get your friends and family to guess where the treasure is. Mark the spot with an X. See who is the closest.

4. Have a competition to see who can find the five most beautiful shells or pebbles. Make a display with some seaweed and ask someone who hasn't made a collection to be the judge.

5. Play long jump by making a starting line in the sand. Run up to the starting line and see how far you can jump.