Before you look at these ideas, you must pay attention to the time of the day and the location. If play dates are scheduled during routine nap times, it can wreak havoc on defenseless, frazzled parents who don't have the luxury of pacifying wailing children at night. Location is equally important because space is a prerequisite for any sort of activity – both indoors or outdoors.
With that in mind, here are 10 awesome ideas that will ensure that you don’t get the ‘mom, we are bored’ look from your child:
- Hide and seek
- Arts and crafts prove to be both stimulating and engaging enough to keep kids entertained for a couple of hours
- Asking guests to each bring a toy teaches the kids how to share and it ensures that there will be enough toys to go around, which reduces the risk of tantrums
- An outdoor, epic, messy play date with a kiddies’ pool, jelly, slime or shaving cream proves to be great ingredients for fun on a warm day and it's not as daunting as it sounds to clean up
- Baking isn’t just an experience that's designed for little girls. Everyone loves cookies, and having little hands decorate their own tea-time treats is a lot of fun
- Inflatable ball ponds work very well for little kids — the bigger the pool, the better
- Painting on a canvas, preferably with little fingers, brings out their inner artist
- An indoor movie day is perfect for rainy weather and older kids. Popcorn and warm blankets are a definite winner
- Easter egg hunts around this time of year always works
- Building an indoor tent with blankets and pillows. My kids decided to turn my lounge into a little indoor camp site last weekend and had hours of fun trying to assemble and disassemble their little fort — and while dad tried to wiggle his way into the fort, the kids screamed with laughter and excitement at having their own secret hiding place.
