My mom always said the secret to great parenting was keeping kids busy. She felt it kept them out of trouble and out of her hair. She also felt busy work developed acquired skills like hand-eye coordination, socialization and a good work ethic. My Mom was a pretty smart parent. That’s why I followed her lead when raising my kids and now, my grandkids. Here’s a few of the ways I’ve kept my kids and grandkids busy over the years.
1. Gather scissors, old magazines, glue and poster board. If you hand a child these 4 items, they’ll keep busy for hours at a time. Not only that, they’ll turn into pro scissor users, learn spatial relations and up their creativity level. Yup, you guessed it. These items are used for making collages. Kids cut out pictures they like and glue them onto the poster board in random patterns. The resulting pictures can be cute, funny or just plain nonsensical.
Some clever collage ideas:
*Cut out animal part pictures and create some new species.
*Create a park with random cut-outs of trees, birds, butterflies and flowers.
2. Kids can build their own grocery store too. They can cut out food pics from old magazines, use old food packages and even real canned goods in their store. Be sure to invest in some play money for true to life transactions. Some play money even comes in a cash drawer. Save the fake credit card offer cards you get in the mail for kids to use in their store. Playing store can become an all day activity. It’s great money and social skill building practice.
3. Make a life size “gingerbread” house. Start by painting a cardboard appliance box with brown acrylic paint. Cut out doors and windows. Have kids make candies and cookies out of colored construction paper to glue to the house. Throw in some real candy for authenticity. Be sure the real candy is glued on with flour and water paste for the safety of little nibblers. When kids are done they can play make believe to build social skills.
Your kids’ gingerbread house could be:
*The witch house from Hansel and Gretel
*Santa’s workshop
*A Candy-land house
4. Kids love building obstacle courses. Let them use outdoor chairs, old tires, cardboard boxes and more to build a challenging race. They have to go under, through or around objects to complete the race. As for skill building, this construction activity teaches kids logic, reasoning, problem solving and more. Not only that, they’ll use the same skills running the course with friends. My mom was right. Keeping kids busy with skill building activities keeps them out of trouble, out of your hair and teaches them the way they naturally learn. (Through play, of course!)
