St Swithin’s Day-weather crafts

So it’s St Swithin’s Day. If you don’t know the tale, the feast is named after a ninth century bishop who wished to be buried outside the door of Winchester Cathedral but, his body was moved in the tenth century and that is when the legend began.

The old rhyme goes:

St Swithin’s day if thou dost rain
For 40 days it will remain
St Swithun’s day if thou be fair
For 40 days ’twill rain no more.
People still believe it today and even I have been known to dread drops of the wet stuff on July 15th.
According to the Met Office however, St Swithin’s curse is just a myth.
“Since the start of records in 1861, there has never been a record of 40 dry or 40 wet days in a row following St Swithin’s Day, they say.
So there you have it. Whether it’s true or not, I bet there will still be some people (farmers especially) holding their breath on the day.
Not wanting to waste the feast though, I decided Boo and I would have a weather-themed craft day.
I saw something similar on Pinterest so thought we would try our own version.
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You will need:
A paper plate
Cotton wool
Pens, crayons or pencils
Coloured card
A clothes peg
Other bits of material, paper, you have lying around the house-even sweet wrappers would do.
Glue
Cotton wool balls.
We began by drawing a circle around a yellow cloth I found in the cupboard-you know those foamy ones…
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We drew eyes and a mouth on it for the sun and stuck it onto one side of our paper plate (imagine the plate in quarters-you could draw quarters if you wish) followed by drawing sun beams around it with a felt-tip pen.
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Then we cut an umbrella out of some coloured card and a handle and stuck that on in the opposite corner. I found a blue foil gift tag and we cut out raindrop shapes and stuck them on.
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Next came the clouds for a cloudy day. Boo’s favourite. We drew a cloud shape on our plate and then stuck cotton wool balls on it to form a cloud shape. This child just loves cotton wool (and glue-imagine the two together). Deep breath.
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For the snow option, I was lucky. Hubster and I got married in December so I still have a complete abundance of snowy themed craft materials. We cut a snowman shape out of a napkin and stuck that on then added a scarf, buttons and lots of twinkly snow flakes.
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The plate itself is done now. It is done but Boo was still gluing and sticking cotton wool everywhere.
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You then measure your peg and draw an arrow on a piece of card that will just about cover it. We decided to colour our peg in with rainbow colours-just so we could talk about another part of the weather.
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You can attach string to the plate and hang it by a window. Each day you can move the peg to the corresponding weather and allow your child to do it for themselves.
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You don’t even have to stick to those four weathers-maybe you could also add in wind or hail.
I am just praying to St Swithin that on his feast day, the peg will be pointing to the sun or even the cloud. Please not the umbrella.
Touch wood.

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