Tips and Ideas for Fun at Home
Photos from sources listed below
This February could be the coldest on record according to news reports, making outdoor activities not very fun at all! What can be done to keep them entertained indoors without resorting to technology all the time? In this week's blog post, we explore 10 different activities for kids you can do from the comfort of your own home.
1. Indoor Treasure Hunt. Gather favourite toys (if it's snack time, gather chocolate treats or healthy alternatives!) and hide them around the house. Give them ten minutes to go find as many as possible! You could vary the game by having groups of items, for example dolls, teddy bears, and lego figures, and assign a group to each player. If you're playing with chocolate, share it at the end!
2. Dress up. Find your halloween costumes or make your own costumes out of whatever you find in the wardrobe. This game is great fun selecting the costume and then playing 'in character' when dressed up.
3. Arts and Crafts. We have arts and craft tutorials on this blog (look through the previous posts in the list to the right) and you can find great articles on the web - arts and crafts projects are fantastic for encouraging creativity, expression and hands-on learning.
4. Cooking/Baking. Include the kids in preparing dinner or baking desert. This is an activity a lot of kids enjoy, especially when the result is homemade cookies!
5. Board games. The old ones are the best - dust off those old board games and settle in for the afternoon.
6. Make your own play dough. Kids love this - we even prepared this handy tutorial in a previous blog post.
7. Make a Den/Fort/Tent. Drape blankets over chairs and a table to create an enclosed space that can be a tent, fort, den, Batcave or anything they choose! You could even bring pillows and "camp out" for the afternoon.
8. Build a box car/television. Do you have any giant boxes lying around? If not, maybe a relative or friend does. Carefully cut a hole in it for a window and let the fun begin - they can pretend they're in a car or on the television or in a computer game. Sit back and ask the kids to host they're own television show!
9. Create your own story book. This is a wonderful way to encourage creativity. Get a blank notebook and let them design the cover themselves with the title "My storybook", and then fill the blank pages with stories from their imagination.
10. Get out in the rain! Okay, we cheated a bit with this one. It's not an activity you can do at home! But who says the weather has to keep you at home? Obviously, if you live in an area where weather conditions are dangerous, then stay where it's safe, but if it's just another drizzly day, why not go to the park with umbrellas and have a rainy-day adventure, exploring the elements.
Sources:
12 Rainy-Day Activities For Kids That Bite Boredom in the Butt
11 Fun Things to Do on a Rainy Day
Rainy day activities to keep you sane
Snow Day? 111 Ways to Entertain the Kids Indoors
