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10 Ways to keep your little ones entertained at home
Life With Our Wild Ones
Is anyone else spending countless hours scrolling through Social Media finding Ideas on how to keep our precious littles entertained during lockdowns and rainy days???
Outside of lockdown, entertaining the kids felt easy as we would keep them and ourselves busy with weekend activities like Gymnastics Class, Visits to the local Markets, Exploring new places and visits with friends and family. Before we knew it the weekend was over, the house was fairly clean because we hadn’t been home, and we were ready for the week ahead. All of the tricks I keep up my sleeve for those rainy days at home, have well and truly been used up!
One thing I am extremely grateful for and have loved through all these lockdowns is that it has really made me think of different ways to entertain the kids at home without spending too much time in front of a screen. We only have a smallish courtyard outside, so we have tried to use that as much as possible for different activities. Prior to lockdown we hardly ever even used that space.
To help you and your littles keep entertained through lockdown I have come up with a few ideas on how to make lockdown fun and refill that rainy day resource list.
We have made this a downloadable workbook too for you to print and keep those ideas on hand!
Chelsea xx
Chalk Painting
Do you have a slab of concrete, a brick wall, or a footpath at home? If so, Chalk Paint is the best! This paint is super easy to make and dries like chalk so there is the bonus of minimal cleaning up afterwards as it will just wash away with rain or a hose. The kids have been entertained for hours doing this and I love how well they get along doing this and that they are outside!
What you need:
- 2 TBSP Corn Flour
- 4 TBSP Water
- A few drops of Food Coloring
- A muffin tray or Small Bowls
Add the Corn Flour, Water and Food Coloring and mix into a small bowl or muffin tray.
Volia, you’re ready to create a masterpiece!
Calming Play Dough
What child does not LOVE Play Dough?!? I have learned to not care about the mess that it makes as I know it will keep Millie & Ollie entertained for a LONG time. I know it is fairly cheap to buy playdough, but I personally love making natural play dough. I also love adding Lavender oil to the dough as it adds a calming element, and I am also hopeful that it will help calm my two nearly 4 year old’s down! There are plenty of Play Dough recipes online. I used the Bake Play Smile Recipe and added Lavender Essential oil. When coloring the Play dough, I opted to use Turmeric Powder, Matcha Powder and Beetroot powder instead of food coloring.
Waterplay
Kids & Water = hours of entertainment! We have a mud kitchen outside that the kids love to strip off and mix water with mud and serve each other mud pies. Their grandmother also very kindly got them a huge bag of sand to play with in the mud kitchen as well which they have thoroughly enjoyed. Prior to having a mud kitchen, we would put pots and pans outside fill them with water and let them use their imaginations and do their thing. – Always provide full supervision
Musical Shows
Millie and Ollie are huge fans of putting on shows for us. They are always requesting that we put music on and insist that we watch them perform. During a lock down last year we got brooms to use as guitars, hairbrushes to use as microphones and got some pots and pans to use for drums and created a family band singing and dancing around to music outside. Our neighbors love us!
Baby Painting
For those extra little littles who aren’t quite old enough to paint yet you are extremely eager to get them into lots of fun sensory activities painting does not need to be ruled out! When Millie and Ollie were little, I would use a large snap lock bag, place a piece of thick paper with a few blobs of different colored paint seal it up. The kids loved watching the colored paint mix with the other colors and loved the feel of it through the snap lock bag. Huge bonus is that there was no paint to wash off baby and the paintings made special presents for the Grandparents. Amazing sensory activity! Probably one of the front runner winners for me!
Bubble Fun
We are huge fans of bubble play in our house. Before Millie and Ollie were even born, I spent A LOT of time making bubble wands, perfecting a big bubble solution recipe and spending multiple afternoons hanging out with friends playing with bubbles. The calming effects are great , watching them glide through the air, reflecting the wonderful colours of the world around them.
The kids also love little bubbles, so we decided to try bubble painting one afternoon for something different. Again, super easy to put together – add some food coloring to some mini bubble wands, grab a piece of paper and blow some colorful bubbles on to some paper. Fun for all! Make sure to pop those aprons on and find a safe space to do this as bubbles can have a wandering mind of their own! 🙂
Outdoor fun
The kids are enrolled in a Gymnastics class that we attend every Saturday. During lockdown that is one thing that they really miss. Seeing how sad they were to miss it in the last lockdown we decided to purchase a few pieces of wood from Bunnings and make the kids their own balance beam for outside. They love being able to practice at home as well. This has really helped them keep up with practice when due to lockdown they cannot attend classes.
Create a Yoga Corner
One day when I was dropping the kids off at Kindy, I watched Millie run over to the fence where they had pictures of different Yoga poses and some Yoga Mats on the ground. Millie looked at the poses and without prompting started copying the poses that were in the pictures. I absolutely loved this idea and decided to set up a Yoga corner in their bedroom. When they need some time out they can now go up to their bedroom and chill out doing some Yoga. Perfect opportunity to introduce some mindfulness too!
Baking
I love love looove baking with my little mini me’s. I have done this since they were little. They have their own little stepping stools they drag across the tiles whenever I am cooking or baking in the kitchen. We love making all kinds of different things. There are so many wonderful Ideas online about things to bake with kids. We currently love baking different muesli bars and bliss balls are also a huge hit.
Of course, there are days when all we want to do is snuggle up and watch a movie together. Millie is constantly asking me what movies I loved when I was little, so I have really enjoyed watching all my old childhood favorites with her. Millie’s current favorite is Annie and we are now extremely lucky to hear her walking around singing Annie songs at the top of her lungs.
I hope you are all enjoying this time at home with your loved ones and that these activities give you some ideas to help keep you and your littles entertained. If you click on the image to download this list of ideas and keep them tucked away for when you need them!
Have a great week and please, stay safe & look after eachother <3 x
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