Keep your kids busy—and happy—in the summer. Here are loads of easy-to-try ideas that we use to do when we were kids. Trust me, every kid loves these.
Children tend to get antsy stuck inside the house for too long. To combat cabin-fever blues, make way for some lively playtime!
4 Boisterous indoor go-go games
1. Fix a small basketball hoop on a door, or a dartboard with magnetic darts. Shooting baskets and hitting the bull’s eye will keep them going on a hot day! Ninepins or bowling is another riotous game your child can play indoors.
2. Turn a corn into a dark-den gym. Draw the curtains and clear a large area on the floor for a mattress and pillows. Now’s the time for cartwheels and leapfrog within the padded space.
3. Organise a treasure hunt. Hide tiny treats in odd areas—wedged between a wall and a door or taped under a table. Arm the kids with a feather duster: The more nooks they dust, the more goodies they find!
4. Draw a hopscotch grid on the floor with chalk. You can add penalties to raise the difficulty levels. High-energy versions include balancing the marker on the head or hopping with the eyes closed.
• Super –Bagging
Fill a paper bag with these interesting items and give it to your child for instant fun. Playdough and a few plastic sculpting tools, like a plastic toy knife and fork.
Pom Poms, paper eye and glue for making little creatures.
Cardboard dolls with child-safe scissors and used wrapping paper for making dresses.
Long tube balloons of different colours, a balloon pump and a book for making animals by twisting the balloons.
A T-shirt and fabric-paint tubes.
A book of secret codes or puzzles.
10 cool collections Encourage your child put together their own collectibles this summer-and showcase them proudly.
1. Nature: Seeds, flowers, leaves, feature, tree bark, rocks and shells. Dry everything in the sun.
2. Coins: Ask your jet-setting friends to bring back loose change and give it to your kids.
3. Balls: All kinds, big and small.
4. Figurines and Toys: Teddy bears, birds, Santas, dolls, cars … everything goes.
5. Soaps: Lots of little soaps of various shapes, picked up from different places.
6. Pocket Calendars: These colourful little cards can make for a great display.
7. Fridge Magnets: Useful, colourful and fun.
8. Jigsaw Puzzles: Simple and complicated jigsaws.
9. Masks: Scary, colourful or just plain fun, these are a super wall pep-up idea.
10. Hats and Caps: Put them up on one wall of your child’s room and keep adding.
4 Clubs to Start
Have a gang of kids in the neighbourhood? Inspire them to start an activity group. Give them snacks and drinks, and a place for their meetings. Here are a few start-up ideas.
Book Club: Gather old books or magazines and help the kids set up a temporary library. Perhaps they can change a small fee for lending books, which can go towards maintenance.
Puzzle Club: They can get together to solve mind-bogglers. Help them collect and photocopy newspapers and magazines crosswords, Sodoku puzzles and other brain teasers form books.
Do-Gooders Club: Encourage the children to look around the neighbourhood for opportunities for acts of kindness—an elderly person may need help with a grocery list or a sick neighbour might need someone to run errands. Let them step in as the Samaritan crew and offer their help!
Neighbourhood News Club: Your child can get together with her friends to put a newsletter to report what’s happening around the colony: They can include pictures of flowering trees, interviews with park regulars, and problem points. Then they could put it up on the bulletin board in the colony club or community centre.
• Chore Score
Help your child learn the value of work with small chores. Hand out IOU vouchers or reward coupons to him for being responsible and meeting deadlines.
Gardening: Tilling soil, weeding, picking up dry leaves and watering plants.
Cooking: Arranging the salad and laying the table.
Dusting: Wiping and polishing inexperience things.
Errands: Give older kids a list of things to buy from a nearby shop.
Tidying: Allocate a task a day, like cleaning out drawers and sorting junk.
Share your skills with the kids, like making cards, painting pots or crafting papier mache. Parhaps they can put up a sale: This will teach tem to budget, track overheads and even earn a profit.
• Pretend Play
Give your kids a story from your head or form a book that they can use for drama time. Kids love to pretend and the easiest accessory to make for role play is the headgear: A king or a queen would need a crown and fairy might require a delicate tiara.
To make any sort of headgear, your child will need to measure the circumference on the head with a string or a thread.
Now cut out the same length on a strip of carboard.
Depending on the theme, decorate the cardboard strip.
Staple or stick the ends of the strip together.
King/Queen: Gold gilt paper, fake shiny gems and stickers.
Pirates: Black paper and an eye patch attached to the cardboard strip.
Fairy: Silver gilt paper and tinsel.
Native American: Assorted feathers.
Explorer: Leaves and grasses of all kinds.
Doctor: A red cross on a white band.
Make a Book.
Every adult is writing these days, so why not kids! Ask your child to put together a book—and let her get adventurous with the shape and form. The literary ones can put together a book of quotes or their own poems and stories, the artists can compile a book of their artwork with a little note one ach drawing and the fact-finders can write non-fiction. They can choose from a host of ideas: A cartoon compilation? A book of rib-ticklers? A guide about their favourite animal, bird, city or sport? A biography of their idol? A collection of family anecdotes? The cover for the book will offer a great art and design opportunity.
• Grow green thumbs
Kids love to grow things. If you have a sunny spot on the window, nurture the little gardener in your child.
Get a few pots and let your child decorate them and fill them with soil. Tell her about the need for drainage holes. Keep a saucer underneath for the excess water.
Get a few baby herb plants (sage, parsley, coriander…'c9) Help her plant them and tell her how often to waste them. Plant many herbs in along container or use a 6-inch pot for each.
She will enjoy making an artistic garden-plant label for her plants, with the name and the day they were planted.
Keep the pots on the windowsill and watch her excited response to every centimeter it grows.
When they are grown, pluck off some herbs to add to your lunch or dinner—that will make your child smile!
• Snacktivity
Is your child getting in the way while you are busy in the kitchen? Here’s what she can do.
Cupcake Art: Decorating cakes helps children to be creative and keeps them busy—so it’s like having your cake and eating it too. Give her (and her friends) cupcakes and assorted candles. M&Ms, little sugar balls and coloured icing in bowls. Throw in wooden ice-cream spoons for sculpting and a clean brush, and watch her have a great time.
Dough Sculptures: Mix a basic pie dough: Blend 2 cups of flour, I teaspoon of salt, 1/3 cup of shortening, 1/3 cup of butter and 5 tablespoons of cold water. Let your child turn the dough into sculptures. Bake at 175c degrees for 15 to 20 minutes.
3 Smart Art Activities
Get some paper and paint? Forget the brush and watch your child show you a whole new world of art!
Bubble Painting: Mix a little poster colour in the bubble solution. Blow bubbles at a sheet of paper with a blowing wand. As the bubbles land, they pop ad the colour explodes. Repeat with different colours.
String Painting: Dip a string into a bowl of poster paint. Curl it up on a piece of paper, leaving one end outside. Fold the paper in half and pull the string out quickly with one hand while holding the paper down with the other. Use all kinds of colours to get amazing patterns.
Crazy Painting: Use medicine droppers, rubber stamps, dinky cars, roll-on deodorant bottles…'c9 think of new brushes and add to the list.
