You will require: a clear plastic drinks bottle or a tall transparent container, water, salt cooking oil, food colouring and a funnel

What to do:

Commercial lava lamps work by using the heat generated by an electric lamp to melt pieces of coloured wax that then rise through a coloured liquid, cooling and then falling again.

We can reuse some of our plastic containers to recreate this effect using a salt lava model, which encourages children to watch and see what happens when  the material changes.

1. Thoroughly clean the container you are using and remove any labels, then fill approximately two thirds with water. Using your funnel, add a few drops of food colouring and approximately 50mls of cooking oil.

The lighter the colouring the easier it will be to see the globules. Allow the contents to settle, with the food colouring, colouring the water and the oil floating on the surface of the water.

To make your lava lamp work, slowly add the salt, half a team spoon at a time, into the bottle. The more you add the more globular the oil becomes. The extra weight on the surface will initially force the globules of oil to sink but as the salt dissolves in the water the oil once again floats to the surface.

You can keep repeating this until the water becomes saturated with salt. A plastic bottle will increase the surface area on which to add the salt, but a container with a lid might ensure fewer spills!

Please note. The lava lamp only works while you are adding the salt.

This activity once again reuses everyday plastic items in a fun way that encourages children to learn about our weather.

You will need: An assortment of yoghurt pots, plastic bottles, wooden dowelling rods, plastic straws, small plastic lids, a long thin nail, sand, some string, a plastic bag, a bradawl, and a hammer.

To make a wind sock: Take the lid off and cut off the base of a two litre milk container and use a bradawl to make six equally spaced holes- 1cm –in, around the bottom edge of the container . Cut thin strips of the plastic bag, thread them through the holes and tie them to create streamers. To make the stand, push a piece of dowelling through the middle of the container (use the bradawl to make the hole first). Pass the dowelling into a drink bottle (via a hole in the lid) that is filled a third of the way up with sand. Turn the model to find which direction the wind is blowing in.

To make the rain collector: Cut the top third of a two litre plastic container and turn this over into the bottom section to form a funnel. In a clear patch of garden dig a hole big enough to hold the rain collector and prevent it toppling over. To make the rain collector: Cut the top third of a two litre plastic container and turn this over into the bottom section to form a funnel. In a clear patch of garden dig a hole big enough to hold the rain collector and prevent it toppling over.

To make an anemometer: Tie two lengths of dowelling at right angles to each other. Make identical holes through the yoghurt pots and thread onto each end of the cross – making sure the pots face in the same direction.

Cut a small section of the plastic straw and slip this onto the long thin nail. Carefully tap the nail through the middle of the dowelling cross. When enough nail comes through underneath, slip on another section of straw and tap the nail through a flat plastic lid until the nail comes through the end.

Next, tap the nail into the end of a thicker piece of dowelling. Making sure the cross still spins freely. Find a 5ooml bottle and fill it with sand, make a hole in the lid and sink the anemometer into the bottle.

You can measure the wind speed by putting a mark on one of the yoghurt pots and counting the number of rotations.