When you don’t have the opportunity to spend some time with your children, it can be a major issue, especially if your kids are active. You have to puzzle over how to entertain them, so they don’t get bored and just sit in front of the TV all day long.
Fortunately, there are a lot of pastimes that can be both entertaining and beneficial to your child. We’ve compiled a list of the best activities to keep your kids occupied for a long time.
1. Throw darts
Darts is a competitive game that can enthrall your children with its excitement. Especially if you get the best electronic dart board that has different inbuilt games, a virtual opponent, different difficulty levels, and an automatic scoring system. It can be played by two or more players, so the family members can divide into teams. Besides, while classic darts have sharp tips, electronic ones are completely safe for kids as they have soft tips. The game can bring a lot of joy to your kids and keep them busy for days.
2. Do life-size drawings
Glue a few dozens of A4 sheets together or take a large paper roll and place it on the floor. Prepare stickers, different accessories, stamps, paints, felt-tip pens, as well as a few pieces of fabric (or old material offcuts). Tell the kids to outline their bodies. Encourage them to draw the resulting figure, a face, and body and design clothes for it. This is a good way to expand their creativity. Plus, you can then help them cut out this real-size figure, and the kids can have a lot of fun with it.
3. Build a home gym
When kids have been sitting at home for a long time, they need to release their energy in some way. Making a kind of gym at home is a good way to help them. Create some fun activities in your living room. For example, take paper sheets and make a trail. Make it a challenge for your youngsters to go through them without touching anything other than paper. Jumping on a certain spot at a specific time is also a good idea but only for older children.
4. Paint animals using fingers
This is a messy type of activity, and kids love making a mess. You can use animal-themed cards and give your kids a task to paint them using only their fingers, hand palms, and paints. They can create a zoo out of finger-painted animals. Then, you cut out these animals, attach them to a pole to make hand puppets. Alternatively, you can just pin these images to the walls of their room. It’s a truly creative kind of activity.
5. Involve your kids in cooking
There are many dishes that most kids will enjoy cooking. As an example, consider baking cookies. Try to mold some animals or any other figures out of the dough. Then, embellish them with food colors, powders, or chocolate. The dough is very similar to plasticine, so they will definitely love it. Plus, squishing the dough improves fine motor skills. You can also make a pizza together. Most kids will enjoy making their favorite delicious food together with their parents.
6. Show your kids the stars
Download a Star Chart app on your phone. This augmented reality app shows the location of stars, planets, and the moon in real-time, displays interesting facts about the objects in the sky, and has many other interesting functions. This is also a good way to make your kids sleep better since fresh air before bed is very conducive to this. This can become a really good sleep habit for your child.
7. Show your kids some magic tricks
While magic tricks may not impress older kids, this will definitely be very entertaining for preschool children. The internet is full of guides on how to do some simple tricks that can be repeated by anyone. If you want to, you can then reveal the secrets of your magic tricks to the kids and teach them how to do them.
8. Go camping indoors
If you can’t go real camping because of bad weather, it doesn’t mean you can’t camp at home. It’s very easy to set up a temporary camp for your kids in the comfort of your home. Set up a tent in the living room (or use blankets if you don’t have a tent). A fireplace can be replaced by candles or a lantern. Sit around the “fireplace” and tell your children stories. Prepare food that you would regularly eat while camping (hot dogs, canned goods, etc.).
9. Tie-dye the clothes
Tie-dyeing can never be done wrong. So let your kids “craft” some clothes that they will then wear with pleasure. There are a lot of interesting tie-dye techniques that can be found on the internet. Use their old clothes or clothes that they no longer like. You can buy a special tie-dye kit or make your own tie-dye bath.
10. Have fun with glow-in-the-dark paint
There are a lot of activities that can be done with the glow-in-the-dark paint. Before purchasing, ensure that it is easy to wash off and fully safe for children’s skin and eyes. You can propose to your kids to paint the face and other parts of their bodies, such as arms and legs. You could also let them paint the walls in their room.