Page 1: Month: August 2018

Searching for cheap or free activities to do this summer with the kids that you can both enjoy? At Fulton Umbrellas, we know how tricky it can be to make sure children have fun during the summer break from school.

So, we’ve created this guide to the best, free summer activities for kids and adults! Take a look and see which ones jump out at you…

Organise a baking challenge

With The Great British Bake Off starting later this month, now is the perfect time to get your kids or grandkids baking some treats in the kitchen. Plus, there are no entry fees or transport costs involved; all you need to do is buy the ingredients!

For young children, make something simple like jam tarts, and for older kids, make the event more challenging to keep them entertained all afternoon. You could pick at random from the cookbook you always use or set each youngster off with a different cake recipe and let them judge the best by tasting.

Do a treasure hunt

If it’s a nice day, pack up the car and head to your local park to do this activity. However, you could always do this in the garden, too. To make this fun, firstly find out how many kids are taking part and their ages — a treasure hunt for a two-year-old will differ a lot from one that’s entertaining for a ten-year-old!

Next, pick a theme to make your treasure hunt special — anything from pirates to princesses will work to make your treasure hunt memorable — and make clues that fit the topic. For the treasure at the end, you could fill a small box with sweets and a few coins, or even lead the kids to a new board or garden game to keep them entertained for even longer!

Enjoy a bike ride

It’s a shame to waste the day indoors. So, why not get some fresh air and exercise with a long bike ride at your local park or somewhere further afield? Look online for designated cycling paths and perhaps choose an area that the children have never visited before to make it new and exciting for them. Use this cycling journey planner for help finding the perfect bike-riding location near you.

Make sure you pack a picnic for the halfway point and make plenty of stops so the kids can explore their new surroundings.

Visit a farm

Kids love animals and wide-open spaces, so visiting a farm is the perfect day out during the summer break. Even better, you should be able to do this for free — minus the cost of transportation — if you search online. Many farmers are happy to let people visit without an entry fee, although often a donation is greatly appreciated, and kids love to see the animals getting fed or running around.

Afterwards, you can keep the kids entertained by asking them to draw their favourite animal or moment of the day. If you have the items (glue, paper, water, and paint), you could even let them create papier-mâché pigs and cows, too!

Head to your region’s most famous and least-known landmarks…

Every region in the UK has a famous spot, even if it’s just a landmark that’s well-known to the local community. So, why not spend a morning or afternoon visiting your area’s most iconic place, then do some research to find a hidden gem near you?

This could be anything from a secret garden to a section of coastline you — and many others — rarely visit. If your children are old enough, get them to help you find somewhere online using their tablets or laptops — this will help build adventure and excitement!

Make a weather station for the garden

As an expert in rain attire and umbrellas, we had to include something to do with the weather! So, we recommend getting the kids together and testing their science skills by making a rain gauge or wind vane.

To make a rain gauge:

• Cut a two-litre plastic bottle two thirds of the way up.
• Upend the top part of the bottle and put it in the bottom section. Adhere with sticky tape.
• Make a centimetre scale on a piece of tape and stick it to your bottle.
• Go into the garden and dig a hole to bury the gauge. It should be about 5cm out of the ground.

And you’re done! Now, get the kids to head outside every morning to measure the amount of rain it has collected using the centimetre gauge on the side of the bottle. If the kids enjoy this craft session, why not let them make a wind vane, too?

To make a wind vane:

• Use a pencil to draw a 25cm arrow on card. Cut it out and use it to draw around and make another.
• Glue the arrows together.
• Now, fetch a cork and four matchsticks. Then, push the matchsticks into the long side of the cork — these should be at right-angles to each other.
• Write: ‘N’, ‘E’, ‘S’, ‘W’ on four separate pieces of card. Attach these to the ends of each matchstick — it’s a good idea to use an adhesive tack or clear tape to make these secure.
• Put sand in a bottle.
• Push a knitting needle into your cork before pushing into the bottled sand.
• Balance the arrow on top of the needle.
• Finally, put the wind vane in an open area and use your smartphone or a compass to verify which way is north so that you can point the ‘N’ card in the right direction.

And you’re finished! Now, the arrow will show you where the breeze is coming from.

These are just a few entertaining activities that you can enjoy free of charge this summer with the children. If you’re heading outdoors, make sure you browse our children’s, women’s and men’s umbrellas to stay dry and comfortable!

Rain and snow are critical to life on Earth. Although the surface of our planet is around 71% water, the salt content makes much of this useless to most humans, plants and creatures — which is the main reason that rainwater is essential.

At Fulton Umbrellas, we’re interested in all types of weather. As World Water Week takes place at the end of August, we’ve looked into the importance of rainwater and how it has helped civilisation prosper over the millennia!

Agriculture

It’s generally believed that agriculture first began around 12,000 years ago. However, growing nutritional crops and plants would never have been possible at the time without the assistance of rain to hydrate, soak up nutrients from the soil and perform photosynthesis. In ancient times, rainwater was collected in large vats so that it could be used during times of little or no rainfall, while later civilisations built harvesting systems on rooftops, aqueducts and reservoirs.

Rainwater has allowed humans to practice and develop agriculture. This means we have been able to create a sustainable source of food that has allowed the global population to grow. What’s more, agriculture is the largest source of cloth material, the source of many medicinal drugs, and a huge form of employment for men and women around the world.

Human existence

It’s a well-known fact that the human body requires water to survive. Around 60% of our bodies are made of water and we can reportedly only last around 100 hours without drinking it. According to the United States Geological Survey, rain soaks into the ground — this is called infiltration — where some of the fluid goes under the top layers of soil and occupies the gap between subsurface rocks. This is called groundwater and accounts for less than 2% of the Earth’s water. But interestingly, it delivers almost a third of mankind’s fresh water supply, which has allowed us to drink and irrigate crops for thousands of years! If rainwater stopped, we’d fast use up our water reserves and groundwater is especially important for countries that suffer droughts, as springs could be the only way to retrieve freshwater for a long time.

Creating climates

Rainwater is also crucial for climate maintenance. When it’s in the atmosphere, it works to deliver a kind of direct evaporation that ‘refills’ heat and moisture in cloud systems. It has also been discovered that rainfall evaporation plays a part in the creation of tropical humidity.

If it weren’t for rain, various weather systems around the world that have helped create biologically diverse ecosystems featuring a variety of plants and animals would potentially not exist, leaving many subcultures without a food source and the wider community without essential medicinal plants.

Water life

Many fish and marine animals that live in freshwater rely on precipitation to survive. Rainwater refills the streams, lakes and ponds that these animals live in, and in turn, humans all over the world use these sources to fish and feed local populations.

Unfortunately, weather conditions like droughts can cause these water systems to dry up, forcing marine life to swim away from key fishing areas, if they can, or even die from a lack of habitat and food.

Clearly, precipitation is essential to human life — even if a rainy day is often looked on as a negative in the UK! Get out and enjoy the next shower with a brolly from our men’s, women’s, children’s, or sport collections.