Most kids love running around outside or watching TV/playing computer games inside. But what to do if you have to entertain them when neither is a possibility?
It’s probably important to emphasise that if the children are tearing the house apart, you may need to really focus your attention just on them, Put away any other distractions (iPad’s, mobile phones, TV, radio) or pause any other tasks you have in hand and get them to focus on one thing. Once they are absorbed, you can relax a bit and get on with what you were doing.
Here are our top ten:
- Crafting, crafting, crafting and more crafting: there are so many ideas on the internet here and it depends to an extent on the age and interests of your host children but we love the imagination tree for ideas and inspiration. It’s a good idea to have a supply of pens, scissors, glue, stickers, paper, sparkly glue, paint and card as well as other items like feathers, sequins, and small art supplies on hand in a box so that you can find something for them to make. Paper plates, the inside of toilet rolls and empty cardboard boxes of all sizes are particularly useful as they can be made into so many things. Constructing an aeroplane from packing boxes, a castle from an IKEA furniture box and a solar oven have been highlights of more STEM type activity, but paper plate angels, masks and painting birthday cards have been popular options too. Older children may like to learn to sew or to knit and if the parents would like the children to do something more educationally oriented then there are lots of ideas on Twinkl, many for free, that can be selected according to season or what is being done at school.
- Build a den/fort/tent and have a picnic inside.
- Car/plane/dinosaur/fish races inside – this one has the added bonus of having to clear some space on the floor (which means tidying up first!) – before setting up to race track for cars, trucks, paper fish (as in this link), or whatever takes your host family’s preferences
- Baking – what child doesn’t love making cakes, biscuits or bread?, can easily be combined with 2 once the products are ready
- Build a LEGO city – gather together all the Lego sets you can find and combine them in a super LEGO construction. Most kids have lots and lots of lego/duplo/playmobile/brio and other construction toys. Often the children needs just a little help getting started with an idea (ie “let’s build a zoo” or “I wish I was on a beach right now, let’s make one so we can pretend we’re on holiday. What do you like to do on holiday?”) then let their imaginations start to take off.
- For young children a sensory set-up is great small bowls of beans, pasta, sand and water for them to put their hands in an feet, you may need to put a plastic sheet down for this.
- “My Little Town” – based on the Charlie and Lola cartoon episode and now a very successful App game, put down a big sheet of paper, get out pencils, pens, wooden blocks, animals, cars, dolls houses or whatever building toys they have and get the children started in drawing their own little town. We often start with drawing a river and then make a few buildings out of blocks but let the child(ren) direct what goes where…
- Acrobatics – put down a mattress on the floor that they can bounce on, jump off the sofa on to and do somersaults, headstands and jumping up and sitting down games without hurting themselves.
- Related to 8, an “assault course” where they have to get across the room without touching the floor can be fun, use cushions, (sturdy) boxes, and other robust furniture to mark out a course. Put on some music and see who can do the course the fastest.
- After all that, if you are still needing to entertain them or need them to calm down then make a feature of watching a film by playing the “cinema game”. The child(ren) can make “cinema tickets”, a big bowl of popcorn or other reasonably healthy snack (carrots/peppers/cucumber sticks and hummus or bowls of chopped fruit for example) and set up a darkened tv room where they show the visitors to their seats with a torch and then put on a film, make yourself a cup of tea and relax…
And of course, just because it’s raining doesn’t mean you can’t go outside, what child doesn’t love jumping in puddles or playing with an umbrella? Just make sure that, as we say in Scandinavia, “There’s no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing…”
The Au Pair's Survival Guide 