A Couple Of Ideas To Entertain Kids During The Summer

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Now that the kids are on vacation, I have been coming up with ideas to keep them entertained at home. Here are a couple of activities we have done in the last couple of weeks with great success.

(In the spirit of full disclosure, I don’t love staying home alone with the kids. I will much rather go out. Wouldn’t you agree that at home the kids get restless, rowdy, and annoying? Well, at least mine do. There, I said it, now let’s move on)

Making Masks

Materials

  • Paper Plates
  • Cardboard – different colors
  • Scissors
  • Multi-purpose glue or glue gun (I used a glue gun in low temperature but be careful with the children)
  • Pencil
  • Utility knife
  • Tape
  • Bamboo skewers or short sticks
  • Animal children books for inspiration (or the Internet)
  1. I asked the kids which animal mask they wanted to make. Víctor wanted a frog, Max a puppy. I looked over children animal books to find the features that made those animals recognizable. The frog, for example, needed high eyebrows, something I would have never thought about without looking at frogs in children’s book.
  2. Cut the holes in paper plates for the eyes. Make sure the distance between holes is similar to the distance between your kids eyes. I have a punch hole but it wouldn’t reach the place where I wanted to cut the holes, so I drew them and cut them with an utility knife.
  3. Draw the different shapes you will need to create the masks on the cardboards. You can be very creative about this. The kids can help cutting them.
  4. Assemble the mask to make sure it looks like you want it to. If it does, go ahead and glue the different pieces to the plate starting with the ones at the bottom.
  5. Tape bamboo skewer to the back of the mask so your kids can grab is and play with it.

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The morning of 4th of July, my kids were pretty restless so I built a teepee for them in the backyard. 3 hours later they were still playing in there! They took food, books, and toys and played with each other for what it felt like a beautiful eternity. If you don’t have a yard, you can do this inside home, too.

Materials

  • Large blankets, sheets, or tablecloths.
  • Long sticks. Any material would do. Be creative! We even used a ladder.

Built the structure with the sticks. The best is to position all the sticks on one branch and spread them out to create the teepee style figure. Cover the sticks with whatever you have available. I used blankets and tablecloths.

Don’t forget to give your kids some snacks and toys to play in there. You will see the teepee will become their secret magic place for a whole morning. Good luck!

Here is another craft idea for your kids, in case you are looking for more.
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6 replies
  1. Jeanne says:

    Love the teepee idea – it looks like it’s tall enough to stand up in. We’ve done blankets over a table with equally positive results – but no standing(!) Fun ideas for the long summer.

    Reply

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