100 activities to keep kids happy free dowload ebook

8/7/2019 100 Activities To Keep Kids Happy free dowload ebook

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© Natural Parenting Tips www.naturalparentingtips.com

100 Activities to

Keep YourChildren Happy



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Hi, I'm Kiera Pedley from www.naturalparentingtips.com. I'm a busymom of two little boys, aunty to many, and drop in babysitter to minions!

I believe that childhood is a magical and special time in all of our lives,

and would like to encourage all parents to really indulge and enjoy their

children during these precious years.

This book is a collection of activities and ideas for sunny days, rainy

days, and lots of childhood fun. There are activities you can set up foryour child to play independently, or activities you can happily join in with!

Here's to happy days, mud pies, and adventures!

xxKiera Pedley

© Copyright 2009 Natural Parenting Tips

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form by any means

without the prior written permission of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover

other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent pur-chaser.

This means that this e-book may not be resold or claimed as your own work.



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Index

Contents Page

1. Sunny day outdoors 4

2. Ah, autumn 5

3. Here comes the rain 6

4. Gluten-free Play dough Recipe 7

5. Play dough games 8

5. Play dough creations 10

6. Sandpit play 11

7. Free and cheap activities 12

8. Indulging the imagination 13

9. Imaginative play with a twist 14

10. When you have run out of things to do……… 15

Bonus - Easy Peasy No-cook Play Dough recipe 16



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Sunny Day Outdoors.

1 Play Bubbles

Make up a big batch of bubble mix (1 partwater, 1 part detergent, 1/2 part glycerine) andblow bubbles. It’s lovely slippery, wet clean fun.

2 Make Daisy Chains

Ok, this is admitting I’m a terrible gardener, orthat I love having a lawn full of dandelions – butI love the colours and the smell of dandelions,and they do make such pretty daisy chains

3 Plant a Fairy Garden

Cheat and use cheap potted colour from the nursery, or do it properly and use fastgrowing seeds such as nasturtiums or paper daisies. Or, if you’ve got green thumbedfriends, get some cuttings and seeds from their garden. Once you’ve planted your col-ourful plants the fairies will need somewhere to hide, and perhaps a fairy stone ring ortwo to dance around – use your imagination!

4 Build a Cubby House

I would say treehouse, but our local council has banned these (unauthorized structuresor something ridiculous) A cubby house can be as simple as a card table and a sheet,or as elaborate as a timber shack – you’re only limited by your construction prowess,

either way, your child will have fun!

5. Read a picture book under a tree

Go outside, snuggle up under the shade of a big tree and share a special story. Welove Pamela Allen’s “Mr McGee’s Apple Tree”

6. Have a Teddy Bear’s Picnic

Grab the bears, a blanket and a yummy feast, and share a lovely afternoon with yourchildren. Bonus points if you bake a few yummy treats yourself – licking the spoon isthe best bit!!

7. Messy Play Spend a lovely afternoon, elbow deep in “slime” (corn starch and water) sloshingaround in the back garden. Followed by mud pies, and a dig in the dirt looking for bee-tles. It’s not often as adults we have the excuse to abandon our clean standards, andlet me tell you – dirt and mess is fun when you relax and go with it.



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Ah, Autumn.

Autumn, you can nearly feel it here. As the summer days get shorter, and the chill sets

in the morning, the colours around us tend to earthier, browns, reds, oranges. What’snot to celebrate?! Warm snuggly nights, fuzzy clothes, crunchy leaves, puddles tosplash in, colourful boots – and pumpkin soup!

And if the idea of cold weather approaching is far too much for you, think of the south-ern hemisphere…. Australia is already having days of 35C (100F) which is just far toohot for anyone!!

So, 10 ways to celebrate Autumn:

°Create a collage of crunchy, autumn leaves

°Cook up a steaming pot of pumpkin soup°Collect pine cones, and create an autumn wreath for the table

°Create a bird feeder with seed, lard, and bits of fruit to see the birds through

the winter

°Plant your seeds for the winter harvest

°Decorate your favourite pair of gumboots for jumping in puddles

°Knit some woolly socks

°Create a nature table or diorama of autumn colours, leaves, and treasures

°Bake a delicious carrot cake

°Take a walk in the park with the camera and journal a special Autumn day.

Watching the seasons change is amazing, and some-thing to truly be appreciated. Point out the specialthings to your child, and allow them to discover thewonders of the world around them.

Here’s to hot cups of cocoa and fuzzy socks!



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Here comes the rain.

It’s raining, it’s pouring, the kids are

definitely not snorrrringggg – what todo?

This little list of rainy day parentingtips, ought to help you through thewet weather.

°Bake – bake freezable

healthy treats such as

muffins, slices, and snack bars. Children love to help measure and pour,

and especially lick the beaters. PLUS the oven warms up the house!

°Make a puppet theatre from a big cardboard carton, and hand puppets from

socks and odds and ends. Sell “tickets” and host a show

°Paper Mache Bowls – make a paper Mache paste, from flour and water, and

drape strips of paper over balloons. Let them set for 24 hours, and decorate.

They make good fun bowls for playing.

°Plaster Boots – Messy, but creative… get your hands on some plaster ban-

dages, and cover an old boot – decorate. It makes a fabulous door stop.

°Paint. Paint a glass door, it wipes straight off. (Use water based poster paintsof course)

°Give in, get wet, don the gumboots and go jump in puddles!

°Make warm cocoa with marshmallows!

°Make a family book, using a scrapbook and family photos

°Get your children to organise your photo albums

°Make a cubby house

°Involve them in writing your meal plan

The house gets so much messier when everyone’s inside, but the best parenting tipI’ve been given, is simply to surrender to it, and clean up afterwards. It reduces thestress, plus – you can tell just by looking that they’ve had fun!



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Gluten-Free Play dough Recipe

For people with gluten allergies or Coeliac disease it can be difficult to find recipessince things like wheat are not allowed. Even the play dough bought in stores containsgluten. Studies have shown that up to 0.6% of children have gluten allergies.

So we modified our popular easy peasy no cook play dough recipe to create a glutenfree version.

Ingredients

•1 cup of almond flour or rice flour•1 cup of corn flour/corn starch (it adds the stickiness)•4 tablespoons of ‘cream of tartar’•2 tablespoons of cooking oil•1 cup of salt•2 cups of boiling water•Food colouring•Glitter, coloured sand, or other bits and pieces to make the dough more fun!

Method

Mix all the ingredients in, then add the boiling water. Keep stirring until it form the rightconsistency.



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Play dough games

While we all knows its fun to sculpt many things with play dough but what other games

can we play with our young ones? Well there are plenty. They are fun and educational.If you want to create your own play dough try our own play dough recipe at the back ofthis book.

Spelling

The first game is easy enough. We take our pieces of play dough and mould them into

the letters of our name. Its great for learning to spell and the individual letters of the al-phabet

.

Memory Game

Take 4 different colours of play dough, make them into 8 balls, 2 of each colour, andhide each of them under a container. The child now has to match up pairs of balls. Thelower the number of wrong guesses the better the score.

The child points to 2 containers. You lift each container up and show them what coloursare inside. If they match you can take them out of the game, if they are incorrect youplace the containers down again and let your child make another guess

.

This can be played with as many people as you like or as many colours as your like.Another variation of this game is to use the same colour but make different shapes andhide them under the containers.



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Tallest Tower

Make blocks out of your play dough (or as close to blocks as you can manage). Thensee who can build the biggest tower. Making the blocks different colours will makeyour towers look much better, but it could also add another dimension to the game.

For example you might have to build the tallest tower with only 3 blue block and 3 redblocks. If you make the blocks different sizes, having the red ones smaller than theblue, you will be able to teach you children about building steady structures.

Shapes

Create many play dough shapes such as triangles, squares and circles. Now scatterthem around on the table. Ask your child to match up the shapes to one another. Youcan get more advanced by creating shapes such as ovals, hexagons etc.

You can also add another dimension to the game such as different colours and

shapes.

Colour Creation

Make play dough with the 3 primary colours (red, yellow, blue). Note that these are thetraditional primary colours. Modern scientific theory now makes (red, green, blue) asprimary colours. You can use either one. Now its your job to make a different colour bymashing together these different colours. Try to make the easy secondary colours firstsuch as purple (red and blue) or green (yellow and blue) or yellow (green and red).

Its fun, everyone gets messy and has a great time while still learning something new.



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Play dough creations

Making play dough is fun, but playing with it is even better. So here is a list of what wecan make with play dough?

Animals

DogCatRabbitElephantCaterpillarSnail

Transport

CarsTrucksAirplane (with short wings)BoatShip

People

Family MembersCowboysPrince/Princess

Or just have fun dressing people upBuildings

HomeSkyscrapersTentShed

Nature

TreesLeavesRiver

Mountain / Hills

What you do with your play dough is up to you. I hope you at least gleamed some greatideas for playing. Play dough is all about expanding your imagination

Car photo by Chrissi Nerantzi



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Sandpit play

My sandbox is one of my most cherished childhood memories. It was the place where Ibaked cakes, built castles, sifted for gold, made mud pies, dug wombat holes, and all

manner of wonderful imaginary games.

A sandbox doesn’t have to be a fancy toy – a space in the garden, and a woodenspoon, and a bit of imagination is all it takes! But if you want to go to a bit more effort,fill a space with clean beach sand, and invest in a bucket and spade. Some play thingsfor a sandpit are:

°Old saucepans

°Smooth edged tin cans

°Old Jelly Moulds

°Sifts/Sieves

°Buckets

°Spades

°Spoons

°Rakes

°Watering cans

Water play in the sandpit is amazing fun – and gives a new dimension and texture to

the sand – encouraging manual dexterity – but education aside, it’s a great way for kidsto indulge their imaginations. So much fun.

Things you and your child might like to try:

°Dripping wet sand through your fingers, to form blobs

°Building a castle with a moat

°Make a jelly mould shape

°Can you make a Turtle/ Alligator/ Kangaroo

°Plant “gardens”

Encourage your child to play in the sand – it’s creative, constructive, and safe play. Youdon’t need to interfere with their play, just let them go, and watch with joy, at what theycreate!



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Free and cheap

Do you have a day to while away the hours together? Lucky you! Why not enjoy it

with some of these free or cheap ideas!

°Poster Paints

°Cardboard Box castles

°Slime (Mix 2 cups of Cornflour (cornstarch) to 1 cup of water, and a few

drops of food colouring)

°Paint on the fence with water

°Grow a potato patch

°Make musical instruments out of household recyclables.

°Play Dough (Easy Peasy No Cook Playdough recipe)

°Bake a cake together (or biscuits, or a yummy slice!)

°Dance

°Sandpit play

°Create a fairy garden (Little seedlings, a few coloured fairy stones, and lots

of imagination)

°Make an obstacle course

°Create a story book

°Organise photos into albums and talk about the people in them

°Make a macaroni necklace.

°Finger paint

°Marble paint (put marbles in ice-cream containers with some poster paint,

then roll them over a big piece of cardboard)

°String paintings (same as the marbles, except

drag some string)

°Play in the mud together!

°Visit the park, and play!

°Create puppets (dish mops are great !!)°Hold a concert



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Indulging the imagination…..

A child’s mind, in my opinion, is the most wondrous thing. Its imagination is unbounded,the worlds and fantasies they explore are incredible.

Providing your child stimulus for their imagination isn’t necessary, but it can be a lot offun..

Keep a dress up box, and paper and paints, have a sand box, with scoops, andspoons, and saucepans in it…Let your children play safely in your yard that our chil-dren where they can explore, and enjoy unstructured play.

If you want a few ideas to encourage imagination consider:

°A dress up box with scarves, old clothes and perhaps a cape or two

°Paints, crayons, pipe cleaners, glitter, and paper – or other craft tools

°A sandbox with containers they can build with (TRY to avoid plastic, it all feels

the same, and is boring from a texture perspective)

°A fairy garden (pretty flowers, interesting pebbles, perhaps a garden gnome?)

°A cubby house, or boxes and blankets to build one.



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Imaginative Play With A Twist

This has made me laugh. My son LOVES to clean. He is Obsessed with the vacuumcleaner, the dust rag is a favourite, and he loves to scrub.

Now, I don’t see this fascination with all things tidy extending into his teenage years,but I must admit that it is useful having a pint sized helper when I’m doing the house-work.

At two years old, he is perfectly happy and capable of helping me:

°Sort and load the laundry – colours, sorting etc

°Vacuum – No lesson here, he just enjoys it, he

even has his own dust buster!

°Dust – fine motor skills°Fold tea towels – fine motor skills, colours, sorting

°Putting clothes away – shape recognition, letters

(we label the drawers)

°Wiping over the benches and table – again, no les-

son, but he has such fun

°Spraying and wiping (with water in a squirt bottle)

When he first started insisting we let him vacuum, weummed and ahhed over the child labour implications, butwhen he did a better job than his dad, vacuuming the rug, Iquickly quieted the voices.

He has such fun, and it’s all life lessons. Sure, perhaps I’drather he was painting (Then again, perhaps not!!)



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When you have run out of things to do……….

You’ve painted, you’ve playdoughed, you’ve made slime,you’ve walked to the park, you’ve got 2 hours until dinnertime and a little creature who needs stimulation and yourattention. What can you do?

1. Bake a cake together, or get really ambitious and make a loaf of bread. It’s like

useful play dough! Toddlers are awesome at mixing, kneading and of course

sampling!

2. Make a family photo album. Chat about the faces, talk about when you were little.

3. Plaster Cast a shoe. Go to your local chemist (drug store) and get some plaster

bandages, and wrap an old boot in plaster. Let it dry and use it as a plant pot.

4. Make bubble mix and play bubbles. We use 1 part detergent, 3 parts water, and

pipe cleaners for bubble wands.

5. Create a story book together.

6. Hold a puppet show/tea party/teddy bear’s picnic

7. Pack up a basket and have an afternoon tea picnic in the yard/living room/park

8. Plan, prepare and make dinner together. Older children might like to help reading

the recipe. It nearly guarantees that your child will try everything on their plate.

9. Make some musical instruments, and perform a song. Maracas can be made with

seeds or split peas in a tin or bottle. Empty tins make awesome drums.

10. Revisit your childhood and teach your child how to play marbles/elastics/knuckle

bones or hopscotch



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Easy Peasy No Cook Play Dough!

2 cups of plain flour

4 tablespoons of ‘cream of tartar’

2 tablespoons of cooking oil

1 cup of salt

2 cups of boiling water

Food colouring

Glitter, collared sand, or other bits and pieces to make the dough more fun!

Just pop it all in a mixing bowl and mix!

It mightn’t come together at first, but keep on mixing, it will eventually take on that nice

play doughey texture.

Try adding bits and pieces like glitter and sand to make it even more fun!

Bonus Recipe



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If you enjoyed this book you will be pleased to know that

lots of other ideas and parenting tips are available atwww.naturalparentingtips.com

100 activities to keep kids happy free dowload ebook

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