ideas/activities

[bmz]

hi need ideas/activities to entertain 3 children aged 5 7 and 11. any help would be appreciated. anything i say doesn't go down too well. i try and do a craft activity each week but they are not interested in them. anything please.

no child can resist junk modelling surely? or playdough or gloop or shaving foam or anything messy!

Mine love den making. I use garden canes with masking tape to make frames then drape loads of sheets etc over them. I give them cushions, and anything they like to do thrown in, like torches, mags to read, or leave them to just chill and peer out den to watch their fav progs on the telly. I try to think back and back and back to when I was that age and after school I just liked to chill under a blanket on the sofa or lounge on cushions on the floor. If the weather was good I liked to join my sisters and dig muddy holes in dads precious garden to make a paddling pool and jump on the mattress mum had wisely buried under the grass. We have a REAL shop in my setting where the kids take turns being the shop keeper, cleaner, buyer etc. Parents purchase items from us during the week and the kids make a few pence in wages. They have learned more maths from running the shop than they do at school, according to their parents. Mine also like cooking, sometimes to stock the shop with goods like biscuits and cakes.

These are great ideas - I find my 5 year old (boy) isn't interested in drawing/crafts.. more physical things. So outside time, car tracks, making things, helping with snack and tea etc etc. Feeding fish.. and the list goes on. I think they do so much in the way of thinking activities at school that they are ready to move when they leave school. Oh, and eat me out of house and home!