NOW CLOSED Please come and tell Cathedral City's Chedds your best winter-afternoon child-wrangling tips – you could win a Nintendo DS

[NewGirlHelenMumsnet]

Hello. We've been asked by the folks at Chedds, the new kids' cheese snacking brand from Cathedral City, for your top tips on keeping your DCs happy, active and entertained as the colder, darker, altogether-grimmer winter weather sets in.

Do you hunker down inside and get creative with glue and paint? Do you dig out the board games or let them at the computer? Or perhaps you wrap everyone up in weatherproofs and get 'em outside, no matter what? Do you plan ahead for windy/rainy weekend diversions? Or do you just go with the (blustery, increasingly sodden) flow?

Do please post your finest tips here. Everyone who does so will be entered into a prize draw to win a Nintendo DS for their family.

Please note that some of the tips posted here will be published on the Chedds pages on Mumsnet in due course.

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

Lots of good ideas here, we love winter walks and arts and crafts. My two dd's favourite at home activity is to act out their favourite story, complete with props and dressing up. They do a mean The tiger who Cameron tea :-)

We love to go on autumn bikes rides, find it too hot to go to far in the summer.

Bundle them up and go out in the garden. There are always loads of jobs that need doing, and the children actually enjoy those awful tasks such as raking up leaves.

Go for a walk and look for firewood. Kids love having something useful to bring home.

As others say, baking is good because there's a very obvious reward for being able to follow instructions properly!

If the weather is not too wet a walk is great to blow away the cobwebs then inside for hot chocolate and making toast on the open fire (lit for special occasions and very cold days!).

Settling down to watch a DVD with popcorn snuggled up with pillows is another favourite.

Also we enjoy cooking and making cakes. I have boys and they just love making brightly coloured, highly decorated fairy cakes.

They also love science so we can spend an afternoon making a foaming volcano with vinegar and bicarb as well as mixing "potions" with coloured water and washing up liquid.

We head to the library, and then make a run for the cafe in town which has a glass roof so we can see (and hear) the rain lashing down!

Wrap up warm and go geocaching - they soon forget the cold in the excitement of trying to be the first to spot a new cache.

Endless games of Star Wars Monopoly, with special dispensation to leave it up to come back to another day.

We have a roll of lining type wallpaper (about £2 in a diy shop) masking tape a long piece of it to the floor or table then we all gather around it adding drawing and sticking to make it into a park/island/city map picture, then the dd's use their cars, dolls, lego etc to play with it! Or I lay the dd's down on the paper and trace around them, they then add paint, sticky bits, fabrics etc to decorate themselves.
Keeps us all busy for ages!

Winter walks, whatever the weather - and if we can collect 'interesting' things for craft activities, or have 'who can collect the most/best/largest/smallest x' challenges at the same time, even better.

Then, home for hot chocolates all round (with rum for the adults and marshmallows for the dcs), a big bowl of freshly made popcorn and a 'proper' family film, with all of us curled up on the sofa underneath a couple of blankets, as the darkness draws in.

Utterly blissful :)

We (DS1, 2.10 & DS2 6mo & me) start the day with a long walk in the park, wrapped up nice & warm. This includes feeding the ducks & a stop for a warm drink at the park's cafe!

When we get home, we have a nice hot lunch eg soup or cheese on toast & then the boys go up for a nap.

After their nap, we might watch CBeebies a bit, or dance around to the radio and sometimes we will make a cake to keep us going for the next week. Or DS1 will play cars & DS2 will roll about on his play gym.

We also try & go to 2 toddler groups a week & meet up with friends on another day & go to my mum's once a week when she has my nieces (3 & 10).

I suggest writing and performing their own play. I remember me, my sister and cousins doing this when we were young. Hours of fun - and involves lots of different things - costumes, making props etc..

Geocaching :) Wrap up warm, fire up the GPSr and go treasure hunting. the children get to climb trees and find treasure, the dog gets a walk, I get, er, oh, I know... I get that warm glow from having done something outdoorsy and healthy with the children. Plan the trip carefully and you can have hot chocolate in a cafe afterwards (or take a Themos and snacks).

Or slump in front of the TV.

treasure hunt round the house...the longer it is the more of a rest I get while they do it

I often put away puzzles or craft kits so that I can whip them out on boring stuck-inside days. They don't have to be new, just out of circulation for a few months.

Get outside, suitably dressed, then come back in for popcorn, hot chocolate, snuggles on the sofa and a film. Care Bears again, most likely .

we normally either wrap up really warm hats, coats gloves thick jumpers etc then just let them play in the garden like they normally do it always seems to make them sleep better especially if they complain of being cold i tell them to do laps round the garden to keep warm then we jump up and down,
if the weather is too bad we will get a big roll of paper and lay it out accross the lounge then i will give them crayons and felt tips and see who can do the most drawings, or we get creative playing hide and seek which my 4 year old loves even if it is a bit tricky as we live in a 2 bed flat so not too many places to hide

Head to the swimming pool and pretend we're at the beach

We make dens in the living room with blankets over the coffee table and then have a "carpet picnic" i.e. lunch on the floor. Hours of peace fun!

Go into town to the library and coffee shop
Wrap up and go to the swings/feed the ducks
Go over to friends' houses - let them trash someone else's place
Soft play if absolutely desperate!

We have had the two sofas in the lounge pushed together to make a "pirate ship" the past two Saturdays and the DC have dressed up as pirates and played for ages. Have a great video of them swashbuckling away .

science stuff is good did lemon batteries today
wrap up for winter cycles and walks with cafes to warm up in
kite flying
cakey makey and cooking generally
computer sim city n stuff
connect 4 dominoes want to teach him backgammon soon
tv/films

i like the winter slow down cosiness

Just having a wide variety of activities over different days, especially in holidays.

So watching a DVD one day, then crafty day, cake baking, playing on the wii, painting. Interspersed with days out such as park, swimming, museum.

Go to a museum.
Invite a friend round - they enjoy a change of company.
make xmas cards for grandparents etc.

Autumn/winter walks in the woods with the dog are great- we let the kids take charge of the camera or take a bag for collecting treasures such as leaves or pine cones. They walk faster, further and with less moaning if there is a purpose.

We use our camping stove to make soup when we get back to the car- flask soup is never hot enough.

If we are home and going a bit stir-crazy I get out the airers and let them make dens with the chairs and table, blankets, sheets and cushions for comfort. A picnic tea and even sleeping in their den is such a treat!

On non-rainy days we wrap up warmly and I create a page of scavenger hunt clues for DD and we head off to the nearest woodland. She loves scavenger hunts!

If it's rainy, we like to cook - she has just learned to make bread, so that is going to be 'big' this winter! Last year it was muffins.

And of course when all else fails we curl up on the sofa and watch old Doctor Who episodes!

Had lots of ideas with her as a child but now she's older, she is very motivated by rewards. So we enter competitions to win things - especially if they are skill competitions. We also write letters to magazines and that gives her some pocket money and some prizes!