Fun Things To Do At Home With Children
Having seven children - five of them boys - they love spending
time outside getting muddy. However as the nights draw in and
the weather becomes wetter and colder outside play has to be cut
to a minimum most days. The problem with staying inside to play
though means that the first choice is either watching television
or playing on the play station. Not wanting to encourage too
much 'couchpotatoism' in my children I have to keep lots of fun
and entertaining ideas up my sleeve to entice them away from the
box and also to stimulate their minds and curiosity.
Of course I do allow them to watch television and we even have a
subscription to Sky television. There are some wonderful
programmes these days that teach children all about history,
science, travel and cookery - and of course, they don't realise
that they are learning because they are having fun! Children,
like adults, also need some time out in which to relax and chill
out, but too much time in front of the TV means they may become
a little too relaxed and don't get to burn off their excess
energy and so end up fighting with each other.
My children vary from newborn up to twelve years and so finding
activities that they can all enjoy and which don't wreak too
much havoc can be a challenge at times. We have a big table
which we try and use for most activities. This helps keep the
mess all in one place. I also try and seat each child not to
close to the child next to them - less chance of WW3 breaking
out over who has which colour pen and less chance that one of
them will be stabbed in the eye!
The table-based activities that seem to go down well include the
following:
Playdough - all children (and parents!) seem to like playdough.
We prefer the cooked sort because it lasts up to a week if
stored inside the fridge. There are various recipes available
online and you just have to work out which suits you best. Never
known what people use cream of Tartar for? Make playdough and
you will find out that it is a vital ingredient! I also advocate
adding salt because this stops little ones eating it. After
being used daily for a week it's not the sort of thing you want
your child to be eating! My children like to make animals and
spaceships out of playdough but cake cutters are also useful and
you can also bake the figures made and paint them at a later
date. We don't often do this in our household because painting
is currently banned. Due to one of them painting some of the new
words they had learnt in the school playground on the living
room wall and also inscribing them on the brand new pine doors
around the house we have withdrawn all paint and felt-tip pens
from the house.
Another activity which they all seem to enjoy is scrapbook
keeping. We tend to go on a big family holiday once a year and
so in the months leading up to this we collect travel brochures
about the places we are going and cut out pictures and the
children then write about what they want to do and see when they
get there. Then we watch the news and read the newspapers and
cut out any articles or pictures relevant to the places we are
going. Our family holidays tend to involve a lot of driving and
visiting places so this is easy to do. We are also Disney fans
which means pictures are usually easy to find. Cutting with
scissors, obviously, needs to be supervised closely (especially
the boys) but it's good to let children develop their cutting
skills from quite a young age. The plastic scissors designed for
children we tend to find are useless for cutting more than a
stamp in half and so we do use real scissors - but since these
are good at cutting your own or your sibling's hair a
responsible adult does need to watch every move. We have had a
few near misses with fringes going missing....
As I mentioned earlier, I am not a fan of colouring pens and
paints. These treats are reserved for school time and playgroup.
My house has just been redecorated after someone drew a picture
of me on the dining room wall. It was horrendous and had to be
painted over to remove it. I therefore only allow crayons and
colouring pencils into the house now. Woe betide any relative
who gives the children pens for Christmas! The children tend to
lose patience with crayons quite quickly - they just don't seem
to colour that well, and so colouring pencils are favoured. For
paper we pick up cheap copying paper from the supermarket (they
don't like drawing on the back of printed scrap paper) and also
use rolls of wall lining paper for larger projects. In fact the
latter is great for collages too - glue made from flour and
water is very cheap and quick to make and washes out of clothing
easily.
When the children feel in the mood to be crafty, having tired of
drawing on their siblings' arms and legs, another favourite is
for the boys to make and decorate paper aeroplanes and the girls
like to make pasta necklaces. Macaroni seems to work best and I
occasionally allow them to get some paints out - but only in
small quantities and Dad's old shirts have to be worn to prevent
their clothes getting too stained. The planes are then thrown
all over the house so the next hour is spent clearing up the
mess and retrieving the planes from the toilet and other off
places where they have ended up.
Away from the table one of my favourite activities for them is
to build an assault course - this reminds me of being a small
child when I used to pretend to be a horse and set myself
obstacle courses. We use cushions and chairs mainly due to lack
of space but quite a lot can be done with these. Blankets can be
held between chairs to create a tunnel and these are great fun.
When they get bored of the obstacle course they use the blankets
to make a tent between the sofa and the chairs and often sit
there for ages talking about smugglers and sinking ships.
There are plenty of other things that we do at home and having
such a large family means that each and every child manages to
contribute their own ideas. The downside is that the mess
created is unbelievable but the sound of laughter and smiles on
happy faces far outweighs the mess - and even the odd scribble
on the wall can be forgiven. After all they won't be children
for long and when they have left home there will be plenty of
time for us to enjoy a clean scribble-free house!