With another round of wet and windy weather heading to Yorkshire, Mumbler has some fun indoor activity ideas to keep the little ones busy.
This website has STAR WARS shadow puppet ideas! But you can make anything you want really. The kids will have hours of fun making and playing with these.
Stick some cotton or string in a zig zag pattern across the hall or landing to create ‘laser beams’ the kids have to climb through without touching to win some treasure on the other side.
Use a tupperware or old biscuit tin. The children can imagine who might find the time capsule in the future. They can write letters, draw pictures, find photos etc to let this person of the future know all about life as it is now for them.
I loved this as a child. Get out some sheets and create a fabulous den behind the sofa or between some chairs. Fill with all kinds of things to keep them busy… Lego, reading and drawing activities, a torch, dress up clothes, snacks, books on CDs….
The Gruffalo website has lots of fun, activities from recipes (have you tried Gruffalo Crumble?) to colouring and craft activities.
So it might be a bit windy outside but if the wind and rain die down there will be lots of puddles left for the kids to splash in. They can take toy boats to sail in the puddles or make mud pies. If it’s still too windy to get outside try creating an indoor puddle jumping activity for little ones by sticking paper ‘puddles’ to the floor for them to jump between. It’ll keep them moving and using their imagination. If you are heading outside the Nature Detectives website has some fun activity idea’s!
You can create all kinds of colours if you’ve got some food colouring knocking around. I have some from the last disasterous attempt at baking a birthday cake for the kids… the result was a terrifying, barely recognisable “Olaf” Frozen cake. I digress, here is a great playdough recipe. ‘Smelly’ playdough is a big hit in our house too. Try adding cinnamon or vanilla.
Make Your Own Invisible InkWrite secret messages to each other in invisible ink. When the ink dries you can heat it over a light bulb (adult supervision required) to reveal your message.
Warning: this can be a messy activity! It’s lots of fun for little ones though and a great sensory activity. All you need is cornflour, water and food colouring (optional). Here is the recipe.
This activity can be as complex as you want. The basic idea is to build a tower using just a few marshmallows, 20 sticks of dry spaghetti and some tape. This is a good activity to keep older kids entertained and you can always use any left over marshmallows in hot chocolate when they’re finished.
The BBC website is full of lots of fun Science activities from this TV programme aimed at kids. Definitely worth a look if you’re struggling to keep the older ones entertained.
Always a good, easy game. I find that if you start the kids off hunting for you at the top of the house you have just enough time to make a quick cup of tea for yourself in the kitchen before they ‘find you’.
Of course, this takes a little longer to set up than hide and seek but you might create enough time for yourself while they are engaged in this activity to actually drink that cup of tea. For ideas of what to put on the list for the scavenger hunt take a look here.
This requires nothing other than a pile of recycling – boxes, plastic containers etc – and some glue or tape and paint (depending on how much mess you’re willing to create). This is and easy one, let the kids make anything they want from the materials available.
Fluffy PaintingsIf you have these two ‘ingredients’ then I definitely suggest making this. You’ll need some white, school glue – the runny kind that you can squeeze out of a bottle or that kids use the glue spreaders for and some shaving foam. Adding food colouring is optional. This mixture will dry to become soft and fluffy to the touch. This blog has a really good recipe, she suggests using sandwich bags to squeeze the paint onto the paper but paint brushes and fingers work well too.
There are also lots of great places with indoor entertainment! This half term the Indoor Funfair is back, there are some great local softplay centres or you could plan a good trip to the cinema!
