This summer, people found themselves at home more with the pandemic and just like everybody else, I was constantly trying to find ways to entertain myself and my nephews while social distancing. One rainy day, I remembered how my sisters and I used to play in the rain when we were kids in the Philippines and wanted my nephew to experience the same happy feelings that come with running around in the rain with no care in the world. There was a big difference though–we have a plain yard here vs having a lot of trees and structures to run around where we lived back then so it made it more fun. I remembered having some tarps in the backyard and even though soap was a pretty valuable commodity at the time, I decided to sacrifice a bottle for the sake of having a good time. We laid out the tarps on the ground, drizzled some soap all over the surface, and let the sliding commence. For hours until the rain stopped, we slipped, we slid, and laughed calories away–the fun way. It’s become a regular activity for my nephew and me during this crazy time and these days, it has been good to have something else to look forward to, other than the CoVid vaccine. With all the rain that Charleston has been getting the past few weeks, I hope you get a chance to let yourself slip and slide…all the way into the new school year. Good luck with the upcoming Fall semester, Cougars!
THINGS YOU’LL NEED:
You’ll need a tarp, at least 20ft., but we recommend longer if you can get your hands on some. The cheapest we’ve found them were for $5 at Harbor Freight or there’s a selection of them at Walmart or Walmart.com for $5-$10. For the one you see in the video, my nephew and I used two 8×10 tarps I had from Walmart. Each was around $4 in the camping section and can be reused for other activities such as camping and trips to the beach.
The first time we did the slip and slide, I just used dish soap that we already had in the house, but I found out that the best soap to use is the tear free soap meant for babies. I found a big jug for $4 at Walmart. The only downside of the soap that we used for the video below was that it was meant for night time so the scent made us sleepy after we got done. It made nap time for the little guy come sooner than planned.
TIPS:
Make sure to slide part of the tarps that you add at the end of each one under the previous tarp so that it makes transitions from one section to another a lot smoother. If you have some stakes available, we actually took advantage of the grommets that were already on the tarps to stake them down so that they stay flat and in place.
Activity is best done when it is raining so that you don’t run your water bill up. 🙂
