Lovely at home things you do

[ItsFineImFine]

Hi all

I’m trying to think of lovely fun things we can do around the house in evenings or weekends that are free/ low cost but that will become cherished memories of their childhoods. The children are 3 and 1.

So far I have

• baking cake for the week on a Sunday afternoon and licking the bowl
• walks to feed ducks
• reading books in bed in morning and evenings
• dancing to loud music

I would love other ideas for the weekends in particular that my kids will cherish when they are older.

thank you in advance

Plant amaryllis bulbs, they grow v fast and give enormous big blooms, check daily. Make sensory boxes or put kids in empty bath with homemade play doh or dyed cooked spagetti.

Sock fight - gather as many rolled up pairs of socks and make your position safe one end of corridor, I hide behind the washing basket. They go the other end, hide behind a turned up sofa cushion. That's it really, throw socks at each other, run out have to retrieve whilst dodging shots. Upgrade is pillow grenades. Utterly exhausting, costs no money. Socks everywhere.

We get some packing tape and build things out of the recycling. We made Wallace and Gromit's motorbike and sidecar once, along with helmets 😆

I also love this thread, so that contributing is a form of shameless place-marking.

Secret spies - buy a cheap wax pencil or shave a candle down and write each other secret messages / draw treasure maps (a swipe over with paint will reveal the 'secret'). Set up garden dead letter drops, cut out eye holes from newspaper etc.

Related to that, anything from horrible histories. We mummified a jellycat raccoon yesterday and spent hours making a pyramid to keep it in and writing magic spells and curses to tuck into the bandages.

The most magic thing my parents ever did was to build us an igloo. It was a year with masses and masses of snow. They used a washing basket to press the snow in and make bricks and froze a pan of ice overnight for a window. Utterly sublime.

This is sheer genius!!! @seahorsegrass

@JennyForeigner the igloo is just a beautiful image! Now I hope for snow!!!

This is giving me horrible flashbacks to lockdown

Big art! Get some lining paper andale a big piece of paper. We did a 4ft /120cm square piece at Christmas so my daughter could try out all of her new craft stuff on one piece of paper

We made a birthday card for her grandad with using small pieces of cut up card. we did a car so the wheels we done with the punched holes from black card for example.

My mum bought my daughter some clay that is air not kiln dried. It's like pastry so not particularly messy. At Christmas we made tree decorations by pressing leaves we found into it.

We have a light that projects onto the ceiling. It has a setting when it changes every time there's a noise so is really good to have on whilst playing music

Mud walks. Put wellies on and find the muddiest paths in the park/ countryside.

(Just make sure you have an all in one suit or well layered to peal it all off before entering the home / car!)
We did finger painting patio doors - Christmas, birthdays seasonal images created with their hand prints!

Board games

Something I used to do was choose a different country and focus on it for a day ie; look it up in an atlas or globe (probably Google these days ), find different things out ... learn a couple of simple words, different customs, currency, draw the flag, plan a journey to get there. Cook a meal from that country etc ... I was a bit 'serious' about things being educational but it was fun at the same time.

My kids are the same age and some of the things we do at the moment which feel like they might become "memories" or traditions are:

• Friday night is pizza party night (homemade, or an oven pizza they don't care!) and we put the 3 year olds disco light on and eat off party plates with music playing

• Sunday afternoons we have cuddles and a family movie with sweets in little dishes

• "dates" where we take one kid out each and spend proper time together (can be just a trip to the park)

• reading time at night on the big bed when in PJs