It’s week five of navigating the home school world and finding out-of-the-box ways to keep your kids entertained whilst learning. Throughout the lockdown so far, we have had beautiful weather allowing us to take the classroom outside. However, as the weather has started to turn – we wanted to give you some ideas to keep the kids entertained inside.

This week’s BA i360 school challenge is to make a time capsule. This is a great hands-on project to not only keep them entertained indoors but it’s an activity they can add to throughout this lockdown period.

So, keep all those creative masterpieces and banana bread recipes you have been perfecting safe, and lock them into your time capsule to reflect on in years to come.

How to make your capsule

1) Pick a container

The main purpose of a time capsule is to open it on a future date, so you need to make sure the container you choose to fill is made to last and can fit all the items you would like to put in! A shoebox, cardboard box or large mason jar make great containers.

If you’re planning on burying your capsule, we would recommend making sure the container is durable and waterproof so it can last a long time outdoors. We recommend choosing an airtight metal tin if you have one.

2) Decorate your time capsule

Once you have found the perfect container – it’s time to decorate it! You could paint your box, cover it in colourful drawings, or perhaps wrap it in some bright tissue or wrapping paper that you might have lying around the house.

3) Name and date your time capsule

4) Fill your time capsule

Now that you have made your time capsule it’s time to fill it with all the memories you are making during lockdown. To help you start, we have come up with a few ideas of what to put in:

  • Artwork you have been creating together
  • News clippings
  • Write a letter to your future self or finder of the capsule
  • Add in your handprints and footprints
  • Your favourite family recipes that you have made together – we all know you’ve perfected your banana bread or cupcake recipe
  • Pictures of each other and what you’ve been getting up to during your lockdown
  • An about me page
  • Weekly diary entry

For more ideas on what you can add, we love the free resource pack of time capsule printable activities from twinkle.co.uk.

5) Seal your capsule and find the perfect hiding spot for it

Make sure you don’t forget where you’ve hidden it! We recommend hiding your capsule indoors, under a bed, in a wardrobe or on top of a cupboard. Make sure you write a ‘not to be opened until’ date, that will protect it from being opened until you want to look back at your covid-19 experience!

Tag us in pictures of your time capsule creations – we’d love to see what they look like and what you plan to put in them!

Don’t forget!

  1. Don’t throw away any cardboard boxes, toilet roll tubes, tin cans, scrap paper, fruit cartons etc, as we will put these to good use in our future challenges.
  2. Keep up to date with everything BA i360 by signing up to our newsletter here. Or you can follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
  3. Click here for free KS1 and KS2 learning resources that we have for you to download – Click here
  4. Check out our last blog post to learn how to build a BA i360 bird feeder activity – Click here