Inspire your really little ones to get crafting, making, designing, and playing with these fun activities.
Work with your child to make a story glove. Using a pair of old gloves (make sure you definitely don’t want them anymore!), ask your child to choose their favourite story, and then use each finger of the glove for the main characters in the story. Decorate each finger with your child using sewing in strands of wool for hair, sewing thread for facial features, scraps of fabric for clothes, and decorate with buttons and sequins. Once you and your child have finished the glove, get your child to use it to tell you the story.
It’s a simple idea and a great way to get your little ones thinking about different foods and combinations, while also extending their vocabulary. You can use items from the fridge or cupboard, or take your kids shopping to find their perfect filling. Once they’ve selected it, they can get to work preparing their designer sandwiches, and even draw or write up the recipe. You can then go on a picnic, have a tea party, or just have a sandwich-swap – anything really to celebrate their creations.
In your garden or local outdoor space, mark off a little running track for your mini-athletes and get them running, jumping, hopping, or rolling in a racing tournament. Time them, race against them, set them racing challenges – even let them race their toys. It’s a fun, competitive way to spend an afternoon, not to mention great exercise!
Try some slightly more elaborate activities with your older kids, combining craft, exercise, and construction!
Make your own bean bags. Supervising your little ones, provide some scraps of fabric from old clothes or bed sheets. Fold the piece in half, and sew around three edges using tight, small stitches. Turn this inside out so you have a pocket, and fill this with dried peas or beans. Stitch up the hole, making sure the beans don’t escape, and decorate with anything you like. You can then play any games you like, from balancing to juggling!
Get the kids to jazz up your garden or window sill by getting some terracotta plant pots from your local garden centre or hardware store, and giving them a lick of paint. You can provide poster paints or ceramic paints for this activity, and the kids can get working on their very own designs. Don’t forget to varnish the pots once the paint is dry.
All children love building secret hideouts! In your garden or an outdoor space provide old cardboard boxes, old blankets and rugs, branches, cushions, tubing, lawnmower clippings, anything with which your kids can start to build their very own outdoor den. It’s a great construction activity and one which will keep little hands occupied for hours. Once the den is built you could put books, paper, pens, and cushions inside and let them hide and play the day away.
It's not always easy keeping your 10 to 13 year-olds occupied. So to give you a few ideas, try these brilliant activities...
Using old tee-shirts, shirts, trousers, hats, gloves - any old clothes (do be careful not to provide any much loved items of clothing), get the kids customising and redesigning their own clothes. They can try fabric paints, glitter, buttons, sequins, sewing, cutting, and using patches, all to design their very own outfit. Once they’ve finished (and the mess has been carefully tidied away), they can do a catwalk show for you.
In your outdoor space, ask your kids to choose a small area to turn into a miniature garden or fairy dell. Provide string, lolly sticks, matchsticks, twigs, grass cuttings, cork, cotton, and other natural materials which they can use to get crafting their very own mini-garden. Your child can make little fences, garden benches, plant pots, and add features such as hills (using grass cuttings), ponds, and gravel paths. If you don’t have access to an outdoor space, use a seed tray or window box instead.
Again, in your garden or outdoor space find a flat open stretch of grass, and get your kids collecting items with which they can build a giant adventure course. Use an old rope either laid out straight or coiled into a spiral as a balancing tightrope, chairs can be crawled under, old bricks or square panels of cardboard can be used as stepping stones, bin bags can be used for sacks to race in, bean bags can be balanced on heads, old tubing or kids’ garden tunnels can be used to tunnel through, and you could even add old clothes to dress up in at the end as they race to the finish.
