26 ways to keep your child busy

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

When it is raining or slush on the street, and parents are up to their throats busy, you urgently need to come up with an activity for the children. With the help of the materials at hand, you can win a few free hours and entertain your child, even if he is tired of all the toys.

1. Sumo wrestling

Dad's T-shirt and pillows can be used to start a battle. Large T-shirt fits small children and soft pillows. The wider the girth of the fighters, the safer the fight.

2. Drawing on sandwiches

A rainbow on toast and to do, and there is a lot of fun. Ingredients: bread, condensed milk, food coloring. Dissolve a few drops of paint in condensed milk, paint the bread with clean brushes. Bon Appetit.

3. Games with colorful rice

Ingredients: Rice, white vinegar, food coloring, clean bags. Dilute the dyes in a little vinegar. Put a handful of rice in a plastic bag, pour the paint into it, tie it tightly and stir the rice to paint over the entire cereal. Children, by the way, like the mixing process itself, when you can twist and squeeze the bag to your heart's content, and the result. The dyed rice needs to be dried and used for pictures, applications and all kinds of crafts.

4. Mass for modeling with your own hands

You can make a lot in a couple of minutes, and children will have fun with it for hours. You will need: PVA glue (240 ml); sodium boric acid, also known as borax, is sold in hardware stores and gardeners (teaspoon); water and food colors.

Stir the glue and water in a bowl, add a few drops of dye. Dissolve borax in half a glass of warm water and pour the solution into colored glue, continuing to stir the mass. When the mass thickens and begins to stretch, knead it with your hands like dough, and in a few minutes you will have a plastic mass in your hands that does not stick to surfaces and does not smell! You can even inflate bubbles from it.

5. Board games with cookies

Buy two-tone cookies, chocolate on one side and vanilla on the other. Make a board to play with: Glue strips of colored duct tape onto a square base. The older the children are, the more cells can be included in the game. Use cookies instead of chips to play. Ordinary checkers can also be replaced with marshmallows or cookies. After the game, the chips can be eaten.

6. House for dolls with their own hands

We do one day - we play for a week! Architectural kit: shoe boxes, scotch tape, papier-mâché paper, scrapbooking paper or wallpaper, paints, stationery glue, newspapers.

Insert shoeboxes into each other at a 90 degree angle. Two boxes will make one corner of the house and one floor. Any design can be made, depending on the flight of imagination. Tape the boxes together.

Then glue the whole house with newspapers, and glue papier-mâché paper on a layer of newspapers. On this basis, you can practice creating an interior. Paints, wallpaper, beautiful paper and even pieces of linoleum will be needed to decorate the walls, floor and ceiling. Arrange the furniture and the dollhouse is ready.

You can make interesting things out of boxes.

7. Plastic balls and masking tape: active games at home

Plastic balls and cups can be used for active games at home. Use masking tape to mark the floor or carpet to define the boundaries of the games. With the help of such simple means, you can:

• play classics, and a plastic cup will act as a washer;
• draw a target on the floor; the winner will be the one whose ball rolls closer to the center;
• replace noughts and crosses with cups or balls of different colors to play on the floor;
• imagine a nest in which a bird protects eggs (cups) from a snake attack;
• arrange a long jump competition, marking records with strips of tape;
• turn into tightrope walkers who need to go around the whole apartment without ever stepping away from the line.

8. Airplane from a cocktail tube

A custom airplane that will fly much farther than a regular airplane can be made with three pieces of paper and a plastic cocktail tube.

From thick paper, you need to cut three strips measuring 2, 5 × 12, 5 cm. Connect the two strips together in length and close them into a large ring with tape. Make a small ring from the third strip. Attach the rings to the ends of the straw by placing it inside the paper rings. It looks unusual, but this design flies! Run the small ring forward.

9. Cocktail tube pipe

If you take 6-8 plastic tubes, cut them off and tape them together, you get a funny musical instrument.

10. Foam rainbow

When the kids get tired of blowing bubbles, invite them to make a foam snake. To do this, you need to have at home: a plastic bottle, adhesive tape, dishwashing detergent, food colors and a sock that has lost steam.

Cut off the bottom of the plastic bottle, pull the sock over it, secure the sock with adhesive tape. In a separate container, mix dishwashing liquid with a little water and add the dye. Dip the sock on the bottle in the soapy water and blow slowly down the neck. You will have a large foam snake. If you get creative, you can make a rainbow out of foam.

11. Shark and crocodile from a clothespin

If you draw a shark or crocodile with large teeth on paper, cut the drawing in half and glue the two parts to a clothespin, then you can start a real war of toothy predators, bloodthirsty opening their mouths.

12. Soap clouds

We continue the soap theme. Ordinary soap in the microwave turns into an air cloud in a couple of minutes, which can be crushed in a blender, dyed and put into molds.

13. Alternative to a slingshot from a plastic cup and balloon

Cut a plastic cup in half. Tie the tail of the balloon in a knot without inflating. Cut off the widest part of the balloon and stretch one half with a ponytail over the cup. You are holding a fun slingshot substitute. Put a "bullet" (plastic or cotton ball) in a glass and pull on the tail of the ball. You can arrange firing range championships.

14. DIY stickers

Drawing is fun when you turn drawings into stickers. To do this, you just need to give the children self-adhesive paper instead of a regular album.

15. Home cable car

Pull a few ropes between the door handles, chair legs and clothes hooks - this is your cable car. Take a hanger with clothespins - this is a booth on your cable car. Soft toys are your passengers.

16. Speed games: catch in one minute

Almost any object in the house can be turned into play equipment if you collect something at speed for one minute.

• Collect candies and marshmallows with Chinese sticks - who is more?
• Build the tallest tower out of coins or plastic cups.
• Place more socks in the laundry basket.
• Don't let the ball fall to the floor for a minute.

17. Glass Ball Race

If you have an aquapalk (noodle), and you are not going to swim with it, make a toy out of it. Cut the stick in half along its entire length (a saw is best). You have two paths along which you can launch glass or iron balls. Place the sticks with one end on the platform, with the other on the box where the balls will fall. Set up the track with the flags "start" and "finish" - the game is ready.

18. Aimed shooting with glass balls

Glass balls make it possible to come up with a sea of games. Take a shoebox and cut several semi-circular cutouts with different radii along the long edge. Turn the box upside down. You have a garage with different gates. They will be the target for the balls. Place the box (you can paint it) on the table and try to aim the rolling ball into the narrowest gate. The winner is the one with the most hits.

19. Bracelets made of wood and paper tape

You can make wooden bracelets. This is an idea for joint activities with children.

You will need: water, a wide mug, wooden ice cream sticks, colored paper tape or colored paper, an awl, twine or thick thread.

Place the wooden sticks in the water to soften. This will take two days. Be sure to press down on them with something so that they do not float and are always completely covered in water. When the tree is flexible, bend the stick and place it inside the mug. The next day, the tree will dry out and take the shape of a glass.

Get to the fun part! You need to decorate the bracelet to your liking with appliqués made of colored paper or scotch tape. When the pattern is ready, make two holes at the ends of the wooden stick with an awl, thread. The decoration is ready!

20. Bracelets made of colored cords

If the child is already at such an age that he knows how to weave braids and knit interesting knots, buy a few meters of colored laces. A lot of simple ones can be woven out of them.

21. Supply of soap bubble solution

Bubbles can be blown almost endlessly. At least until the solution runs out. To make this happen soon, make a large supply: 3.5 liters of water, a glass of dishwashing liquid, a tablespoon of glycerin. The barrel of solution is ready!

22. Painting without spots

If you pour a little shower gel mixed with dyes into a sturdy, hermetically sealed bag, your child will be able to draw futuristic pictures with their fingers and not get dirty!

23. Car wash with your own hands

Children can play for hours in the bathroom with a real car wash, which can be made from a five-liter plastic canister, dishwashing sponges and moisture-resistant adhesive tape.

From the canister, you need to cut out the sink body with entry and exit. Cut the dishwashing sponges into thin, long sticks and glue them vertically to the ceiling of the sink. Use permanent markers to color in the structure. Place shaving foam in empty yogurt jars, take old toothbrushes and toy cars. Imagination will do the rest.

24. Science experiment with balloons

Show your child a chemical experiment in the kitchen. Place a spoonful of baking soda in a balloon and vinegar in an empty plastic bottle. Place the ball on the neck of the bottle and secure it tightly. Gradually pour the baking soda from the ball into the bottle. The neutralization reaction will release a large amount of carbon dioxide, which will inflate the balloon.

25. Frozen Dinosaur Egg

If your child loves dinosaurs, show him how ancient dinosaurs hatched from eggs. Put a dinosaur figurine in a balloon and fill it with tinted water, then send the balloon to the freezer. When the water freezes, call the young paleontologists. Remove the "shell" of the ball from the eggs, examine the dinosaur in the ice. You can take out the toy with a small hammer (only you need to do this with swimming goggles so that small pieces of ice do not damage your eyes).

26. Banana Ice Cream

You can make popsicles with just one ingredient. Take bananas (preferably a little overripe), peel and cut into thin slices. Place in the freezer. After a couple of hours, remove the frozen bananas and stir in a blender until the mixture resembles thick sour cream. Ice cream can be eaten straight away or placed in tins and re-frozen. Older kids can do the cooking themselves!