Make DIY hand warmers
You’ll need
- Clean socks
- Rice
- Tablespoons
- Coloured fabric pens or permanent markers
Before you begin
- Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Additional help to carry out your risk assessment, including examples can be found here. Don’t forget to make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
- Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help if you’re short on helpers.
Running the activity
- Each person needs to take one sock and decorate it with coloured fabric pens or permanent markers. You could write your name, or you could choose to draw some pictures. When finished the socks will be tied from around the middle, so keep this in mind when decorating.
- Add 3 large tablespoons of uncooked rice into your decorated sock, and make sure it goes all the way to the bottom.
- Tie a knot in the sock, making the knot as close to the top of the rice as you can. You want to have a ball of rice in the toe end of the sock, with the knot ensuring that the rice can’t fall out.
- Pop the sock into the microwave for 30 seconds, and then carefully take it out as it will be hot. You will need an adult to supervise this part of the activity, and you might want to use a tea towel or oven gloves to help get the socks out of the microwave.
- Your hand warmer is finished! Pop it in your coat pocket to help keep your hands nice and warm.
- The microwave shoots out a bunch of microwaves, which are tiny beams of energy.
- The microwaves transfer their energy to the rice, heating it up.
- Because we added lots of rice, the hand warmers can stay warm for a long time, just like penguins huddling together to stay warm.
- Once the rice runs out of energy and gets cold, we can put it back in the microwave to heat up all over again.
Rice or wrong?
- You’ve made your hand warmers and understand the science behind them, now it’s time to do some tests.
- Check out Experiment development to design your own science experiments to test out your new hand warmers.
- You could try heating the hand warmers up for longer and see how long they stay warm for, you could try making the hand warmers bigger or smaller, or you could try out different materials, such as dried beans or lentils.
- Once you have finished your experiments, look at Share the science to find out about sharing what you’ve learnt.
Reflection
How can rice keep your hands warm? There are lots of cool things we can do with science, and not just with socks. What other amazing science experiments have you seen before?
Safety
All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.
- Hot items and hot water
Kettles, cookers and microwave ovens produce a lot of heat by the very nature of them. Caution is needed when in contact with items that have been heated and young people should use them under adult supervision. Use on a suitable surface, protecting it if necessary. Never leave hot items unattended and make sure there’s a nearby first aid kit, with items to treat burns/scalds.
You could sew the socks closed and cut the ends off, or you could even make your own custom pouches to fill with rice.
You could use a funnel to fill the socks with rice to make it easier, and use a glass to help keep the sock open by stretching the sock over edge of the glass.
All Scout activities should be inclusive and accessible.
Take home your brand-new hand warmer and see when you could use it. Could you make some as gifts for your family, friends or neighbours?