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Favorite
Activities To Do With Your Child
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Suggestions for Craft/Activity Books
- Safer Child Favorite Activities to
Do With Your Child
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Remember that activities usually don't have to be finished
all at once. If your child gets bored, stop the activity and resume it later. Make sure
your child stays well-hydrated, and try to not direct or correct everything he or she
does. Set up the activities so that if there's a mess, it's not a big deal.
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Travel, without leaving your immediate area.
TripAdvisor.com can help you plan a fun
getaway that's nearby.
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Go swimming.
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Go fly a kite. Go as a family, or
bring some friends and have a kite-flying contest. Give prizes for the highest
kite, the goofiest, the most beautiful, the scariest.
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Go to the drive-in. You can find a
drive-in near you at
http://www.drive-ins.com.
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Have your friends and neighbors over for a
block fair. You can have potato sack races, watermelon eating
contests, horseshoe pits and other cool games.
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Do a science project together.
Plant flowers; catch lightning bugs, moths or harmless millipedes (let them go
after an hour or so); build an ant farm; build a bird house or butterfly nest;
go birding; track the weather; build a dam in a river (make sure the water level
is low and that you don't leave your child unsupervised); go camping and teach
skills in navigation, star gazing, fire-building, emergency, knot tying, food
storage, water sanitation, and animal tracking.
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Help your neighbors. Walk a dog
for an elderly neighbor, mow a lawn, weed a garden, go grocery shopping, drive
them to the hairdresser's, bake them some bread or cookies, help them telephone
a loved one, take them to the park and let them watch your child play, take them
to church, drive them and their pet to the veterinarian.
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Build a scrapbook for your vacation
adventures.
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| Start a journal or diary for your
child. Buy inexpensive journals, paste your
children's picture on the front, and help begin a diary. You can write for them if they
don't know how yet, and they can add pictures, or beginning letters. Allow your children
to say whatever comes into their head, and they will be fascinated that their words are
becoming part of a story. |
| Snow.
Children love snow! See our
Fun in the Snow section for ideas. |
| Theater. Get
your child involved in a local theater group, and become a member of the crew. You can
help paint, organize, or sew costumes. Get them singing,
dancing, doing gymnastics or playing in a band. |
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Camp or hike. Take
your child on some outdoor activity on federal lands. See Recreation.Gov for suggestions on where to go in
your particular state, and what to do when you get there!
The
National Recreation Reservation Service
- 1-877-444-6777 - allows you to reserve certain U.S. Forest Service camping
sites. Also see our
Camping and Hiking page for tips on keeping a camping trip safe and fun. |
| Read to your
child. Read with your child. Listen to your child read to you. Get involved in the story.
Your child can help finish the story, rewrite the story's ending, answer questions about
what happened or what will happen, or ask questions about the story. |
| Library. Take
your children to the library and read to them there. Allow them to get their own library
card. Teach them to give the card to the librarian, and to say please and thank you.
If your library has computers with programs for children, allow your children
to use them in limited doses. |
| Sing songs to
-- or better yet, with -- your child. Encourage your children to make up songs on their
own. Begin singing lessons or piano lessons. |
| Tape a song.
Record your child's voice, songs, poems or stories on a tape recorder. Extra tapes can be
gifts for relatives. |
| Dance to the
radio. Get a scarf and dance around each other, holding on to the ends of the scarf. |
| Work out together
(your child can dance to the radio or a video while you work out. Don't expect your child
to keep up with you, to use adult equipment, or to lift weights. Younger children should
simply be having fun. Don't ever leave young children alone with equipment). |
| Tell your child a story
- about you as a child, about your child's birth, about her toys, about grandma and
grandpa. Allow your child to tell you a story, and let the grammar come out however it
comes out. Let your child record a story on a cassette recorder, or put the story on
video. |
| Write a family story.
One person starts with one sentence, and the next person writes the next sentence, and so
on, until you have a complete (and wacky!) story. Try it in a group (whisper a sentence in
your child's ear, and let your child whisper that same sentence in someone else's ear, and
so on around the table. Your child will be amazed at what that sentence turns into)! |
| Describe. Try
to think of as many ways as you can to describe something: round, blue, sharp, fun,
bouncy, hollow, slick, light, cool, squeaky, shiny, old...Use all the senses. |
| Bake cookies,
a cake or snacks with your child. Even young children can help get out supplies, dump
flour into a bowl, mix a little, add raisins, cut out cookie shapes, decorate cookies or
cakes, or watch the recipes rise in the oven. |
| Clean the house.
Believe it or not, young children love to help. Ask them what they'd liked to help with
and then let them do it. Try to keep it fun. You can sing while you work or whistle. You
can have races to see who can finish first. Even young children can wash the floor, wash
the car, pull weeds, brush away snow, dust the furniture, put their toys away, water
plants and toss laundry in the hamper or down the chute. Resist the urge to correct their
work. If you have to clean up after them, try to do it when they aren't watching. |
| Travel. Take
your child to the zoo, park, museum, hiking trails, planetarium,
art galleries, police station, fire
station, tourist stops, swimming pool, or playground. Get involved with the activity;
don't just sit on the bench. Ask the people there to help explain things to your child, or
to take your child on a tour. |
| Go outdoors.
Look for doodlebugs, caterpillars, worms (not centipedes!!), butterflies, spiders
(carefully!), birds, squirrels, colored leaves...Go on nature walks and make artwork with
whatever you find. |
| Have a scavenger hunt.
Invite neighborhood children. |
| Build stuff.
You can use commercial building sets -- or blocks, coins, pillows, cards, plastic
containers...Allow your young child to knock everything over. This gives them a sense of
control. |
| Draw a map of
the neighborhood, school or the house. Point out safe
places to go, fun places to go, places to avoid. |
| Play "What If". "What if I get lost? What if I need to reach you? What if I
get scared? What if my friends want me to do something I don't want to do? (Decide on a
simple code or codeword that tells you your child is feeling uncomfortable and wants you
to insist he or she come home now.) |
| Teach
fire safety and have a fire drill. |
| Teach your child your address
and phone number. This might be easier if you make the numbers into a
song. We found Sesame Street's video "Big Bird Gets Lost" helpful.
Talk about safety and what to do if your child gets lost or is in
trouble. |
| Plant seeds,
flowers or greenery, and teach your child how to take care of them. Arrange flowers. Help
your child arrange fresh or fake flowers in a vase. |
| Redecorate.
Consult with your child about how to redecorate the child's bedroom. Shop together for
supplies and work on the project together. |
| Compliments.
Write down all the reasons your child is special and tell your child. Post the list
somewhere conspicuous. |
| Child chooses.
Help your child choose a special activity or hobby and shop for it. Help your child get
started. Let the child plan an evening out with or without the family. Allow your child to
pick dinner. Older children can even make it. |
| Blanket fun.
Roll up your child in a blanket and then tug on the exposed side until your child tumbles
out. (don't allow your child's face to be covered, and don't leave your child in the
blanket for more than a minute or so.) |
| Allow your child to do your
hair. Many children love to comb your hair or put elastics or barrettes in
it. But discourage your child from sharing brushes or combs with friends. Head lice,
ringworm, and strep infections all can be transmitted through combs and brushes. |
| Guess the object.
Place several objects in a bag and have your child guess, using only his or her fingers,
what's inside. Put pairs of objects in a bag and have your child pull out similar objects. |
| Play "I Spy
With My Little Eye" (something that is round, that is blue, that starts with a W,
that is hot...) and let your child guess. Then your child can choose something and you can
guess. You can also play a memory game in which your child closes his or her eyes and
tries to remember what color your shirt is, what's on the wall, how many shelves the
bookshelf has... |
| Volunteer with
your child at a local charity or hospital, or make crafts together to donate to a local
charity or hospital. If your older child is interested in community work, form a charity
or community project with your child. |
| Write letters or thank you
notes to relatives. Even young children can stamp envelopes, rubber stamp
the letters or draw on the cards. This is a gentle way to teach children to be
appreciative. |
| Look through family photo
albums and tell your child who everyone is, where they came from, and how
much they love him or her. Make a family tree to help your child understand everyone's
relation to everyone else. |
| Tell time. Buy
your child a watch and explain how to tell time. |
| Play games and do puzzles with your
child. |
| Have a camp out
in the backyard. You don't have to do this at night, either! Have a picnic, roast
marshmallows, tell stories, teach your child about fire, making knots, reading a compass,
following animal tracks, etc. |
| Gymnastics.
Teach your child to do somersaults, walk a balance beam (use masking tape on the floor),
or do cartwheels. Begin dance lessons, gymnastics
lessons, karate lessons. |
| Have a pre-birthday birthday.
Make a pre-birthday cake. |
| Have a special dinner and
specially invite your child. Play nice music, light pretty candles, and use the good
tableware. |
| Have a picnic dinner outside
on the lawn, or inside on the floor, with a blanket. Have finger food (vegetables, dip,
fruit, cheese and crackers. Eat pudding with fingers.). No rules (dessert can be first!). |
| Play balloon volleyball.
Smack the balloons back and forth -- or stretch some string across the room and try to hit
the balloon back and forth (remember that any deflated balloons are a choking hazard). |
| Make sock bean bags
(fill old socks with uncooked beans), and try to hit a wastebasket or laundry basket. Make
sock snowmen (fill old socks with leftover material, sew together and decorate). |
| Play dress-up, or put on a play. Pretend you're inanimate objects, or animals. Act out a story or
favorite character. Pretend you're walking in the snow, in sand, in water, on a cloud. Get
the neighborhood together and put on a play for the parents! |
| Allow older children to take apart
broken appliances and see if they can fix
them. But first make sure that all dangerous parts, such as batteries, are removed. |
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