Can we share ways to entertain kids in house?

[Permenantlyexhaustedpidgeon]

I’m deliberately not mentioning why so this can hopefully stay in chat, but, can we all share ideas on how to entertain the kids for prolonged periods in the house?

To kick things off - when Ds was little he loved a bath full of shaving foam in the middle of the day.

My friend sent me her list and on it was:

Water balloon fight
Treasure hunt
Ball of wool and tying it round things in the room to make a maze (which you have to climb through without touching the wool)
Learning to cook something simple

I hope this attaches - loads of ideas on here though!

learn some magic tricks (DIY or kits off amazon)

learn to play card games such as rummy

indoor bowling (fill waterbottles with water, keep score)

tray memory game (put small objects on a tray, show for 20 secs,

cover tray with towel and write down what you remember)

indoor hopscotch with masking tape (or outdoor with chalk)

raise some tadpoles into frogs (now is about the right time to look for frogspawn, you could also use 'seamonkeys' off amazon if you cant find any)

For some reason colouring in the bricks in the back wall with chalk kept mine quiet for ages. Or a toy "spa day" aka washing up bowl full of soapy water and all the plastic ponies etc.

Bit older now (9) so my plans include:

• Camp Nano (online writing challenge)
• learn touch typing
• learn to sew/knit a soft toy
• make a comic book
• yoga pretzels / online kids' fitness videos
• grow some seeds
• "help" me with some DIY

I know 2 kids who are in isolation. Following guidelines that is about 12 weeks. So Monday to Friday school hours they are structuring it like school (including breaks). One of them is doing a lot of crafts. I'm looking at getting some games, as well as crafting stuff.

If you're on Facebook, this page has been set up very recently and some of the ideas are fantastic!

Look up five minute mum. She has a blog/Instagram page/Facebook with brilliant (quick to set up!) Ideas.

I’ve just added chalk and seeds to my amazon order!

Love the ideas - am writing lists! I might put them all into a jar so DS can pick something out each day..... I can see him being glued to a screen if I don’t put something together!

Goodmideash,just don't feel you have to "entertain " them all day.

I used to love tidying my mum's kitchen cupboards, and "arranging" the tinned stuff.
Washing up bowl of water, and pouring stuff/floating boats etc. Maybe get them to do the red washing up - if you have a dishwasher, they may not know that this sort of thing exists!
Write a letter or postcard to grandma/auntie. I think you will be fine walking to the letter box to post it. Preferably choose someone who will write back.
Playing with balloons. Or bubbles.

Twinkl have a month free for teachers/parents/carers - I've just signed up and it has amazing worksheets to print off and keep up schoolwork.

Today we went into the garden and went on a minibeast hunt.

We built an entire Lego village.

We made pancakes (lots of measuring, mixing, etc)

I had to do some housework, cleaning so I set a timer on Alexa for one hour - allowed DS screen time till the timer went off. I think this is the way forward as he knew it was for a set amount of time....

We can build dens, watch films, luckily have loads of board games, but I'm going slightly crazy after only 2 days inside....

Mine would be happy to be left to play on electronic devices all day if they had the chance. I think I will teach them some more cooking skills if I have a captive audience.

We do pretend you tube videos!

We made flapjacks on Sunday. My daughter is 6 so we found a recipe online, she wrote it down (skill) we halved the recipe (skill) we weighed the ingredients and made them. Did a pretend you tube video. Then she helped clean up which she likes doing!

I have a toddler.

We’ve been:

• Washing up bowl with lots of cups for water play (in kitchen with lots of towels underneath or outside if nice)
• Baking cakes and ‘helping’ us cook
• Disney movies in afternoon
• Duplo blocks
• Putting pom poms into plastic bottle
• Painting with potatoes
• Changing DD into some old clothes, then just letting her lose digging up the flower beds
• YouTube has some good drawing videos for older kids
• We did the Emily Norris DIY play dough I think with cornflower and shampoo
• Bathing the dog
• Playing with the rabbit
• Stickers
• Dressing up box, letting her ‘do her make up’ with my old brushes.
• Making smoothies or milkshakes
• Teddy bears picnic lunch
• Getting all her books out and just sitting down to read
• Making a den
• for older kids If you have a tent you could put it up in the back garden!

Lots of moving around to different rooms, and cups of tea/ biscuits for me .

My little boy made a Random Idea Generator website last half term www.whatshallwedo.co.uk

He’s programmed in lots of activities for indoors on the Things to do indoors page (and he loved getting ideas sent in to him to add too!)

We use it most days it’s fun and means we don’t have to think of things all the time!

My plans include
Sort the garden so they can play out.
Balloons
Work books on twinkl
Help my 6yo with his reading, 12yo with spelling, 7 yo with times tables and 14yo with English lit and maths
Board games
Exercise videos
Bake/ cook

Oh, also, too much iPad time and some enforced tidying!

Structure is the key. Plan out your day, timetable things and it's less likely to descend into boredom or over excitement.

What to actually do depends on ages, mine are little so we've (in isolation) been making up dances, playing with toys, letting off steam in the garden, reading stories, making up silly rhymes, talking in gobbledegook, baking, making all sorts of lego without instructions. In between our meals, bathtime and bedtime it's been a very full day, but not overwhelming as we had a plan. It helps that the older one is used to a school setting so understands a timetable, but it's mainly for my benefit as the day stretching on and on feels too much without a plan when there is so much chaos associated with being housebound with small kids.

I’m hoping to teach my 2 teens to cook more than an omelette.

I'm thinking about all those essential life skills I keep meaning to get round to (older primary school).

Researching what washing machine symbols mean, and sorting/putting on laundry.

Learning to cook properly.

How to clean the bathroom.

Also

• learning some language skills using duolingo
• board games (anyone for a round of pandemic??)
• learning how to play cards
• exercise videos on you tube

If schools close, will definitely be looking to put in a bit of structure to the day.

That's as far as I've got. Keen to pick up other tips though.

Following

I'm going to structure it like a school day, an hour of maths and English then a playtime (hopefully in the garden) some fitness and art, then lunch break, project work and reading until their usual hometime.

After "school" they can have screen time, board games etc, too much free time and we would all go mad, it's great for a few days but who knows how long any disruption will last.

Sorry about not popping back sooner - life’s been a bit crazy. Thank you all so much for the suggestions - I’m going to stick with a schedule too, if I have a plan then it might just keep me sane!

If anyone else has suggestions then feel free to add them, especially now schools have been confirmed as closing