Ideas required for proactive things I can do at home with..

[dropinthe]

my three year old ds and my 13 month ds. I'm on MN far too much these days,just letting them get on with playing with themselves. What games etc can I play or activities can I do to get them both playing together????

link{http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0746033400/ref=pd_sim_b_dp_5/202-7477733-4980619\I can highly recommend this book}

In the meantime:
sticky pictures are good - tin foil, pasta, coloured paper shapes, corrugated card, wool, cotton wool balls. Grab some PVA glue and have lots of fun.
Hide and seek
bandaging dollies
bathing dollies
teddy's picnic
making breakfast/tea for mummy
playdough / plasticene
colouring in books
drawing - have a theme - eg zoo animals or farm animals

will try again

Thank you so much-what great ideas!

Oh and Baker Ross are great for cheap craft stuff / ideas.

here

Just back on-can I ask-how do you put a website on Mn like that???Not techy at all!!

Dropinthe - When you are typing a post there are instructions to do a link in the yellow box on the right hand side, (at the bottom of the box).

HTH

Big fave with mine is a basin full of water and things you can pour with (of diff sizes so they can see what fills one won't fill another), things with holes are hard to fill, some float, some don't. Worth the mess - keep towels handy or play outside. Don't forget to sing to them, nursery rhymes and stuff, it's really good for their speech and lang devt. There's stuff about rhymes and songs and why they're good on a lullaby website whysinglullabies_g.asp . Turn taking games are good, anything in the board games line for that age, even snap or non-compet dominoes. Play hide and seek with farm animal toys or similar. They hide and you find, then you "hide" the toys and they find them - but hide really means put them places round the room where they're still easily seen!! Simple clapping games like pat a cake are good one to one, keep it really easy but time the rhythm of the song to the rhythm of the claps they're managing, so they associate heard rhythm and the rhythm of the action. Hope this helps!

Oh we love the hiding game! We've got 4 small cuddly teletubbies and we 'hide' those but yes, for ds2 who is 2 they have to be pretty obviously placed

Chuck em in the garden! now it's getting nicer it's great to get them out there! You could give them chalk to draw on the patio/pavement with as it will wash off in the rain, or you could give them a bucket of water and a paintbrush and they can 'water paint' on the path!

I've also collected junk (cartons, boxes etc) over a week and then put them all out on the floor for them to stick together and make 'spaceships'.

We've got a couple of games from ELC that the kids like (aged 4 and 2) - manic martians and springy spider.

Picture dominoes is a good one though you have to carefully supervise it!

I get ds2 to help with chores like dusting and polishing and he also likes putting washing in the machine - it takes an age as he does it one by one telling me what each is as he goes 'daddy's sock', 'mummy's t-shirt' - so cute!

You could also get them on the computer - look at the CBeebies website or Thomas the Tank Engine site - there are some simple games and mine love seeing the characters from the TV. Just getting ds1 to get the hang of 'dragging' atm!

...i thought that said provocative! thats me just skim reading the beginning and end of words! sorry not meaning to hijack your thread things to do with kids?...my ds only 10mths so what do i know...remember my mum making butterfly prints with us by folding the paper in half, that was fun. we also used to play hide and seek with these tiny little mice ceramic figures, that was also good, used to give clues such as 'cold' 'getting warmer' 'no freezing' 'boiling' etc...ah those were the days!