Help with Kids

[BrattishTaz]

Mine loved to draw at a very early age. Get some kindergarten crayons and some paper and put them on a washable surface ( the kitchen floor?). Just watch to make sure they don't give you new wall decor.

 

[sourland]

Quote:
The makeshift tent always worked for our kids. A large box turned into a fort is also effective. Read to them now so that as they grow they become readers. A good book on a rainy day is a fun thing--I realize this won't be effective for you at the moment.

 

[areyoumymother]

Quote:
X2...

I guess I was unconventional in my child rearing days.....

Bad weather days were always fun experiences to go out (bundled up) and explore what the world looks like when it is not all nice and sunny and perfect.

To have the kids experience what rain soaked boots feel like and frozen mitten hands in the snow.

Lot of good times making snow angels and playing 'lean to' on a blustery windy day...

just a few of many influences I guess that may have something to do with them both becoming marines, they have never been afraid of anything

 

[ChickenAlgebra]

Quote:
The makeshift tent always worked for our kids. A large box turned into a fort is also effective. Read to them now so that as they grow they become readers. A good book on a rainy day is a fun thing--I realize this won't be effective for you at the moment.

Yup. Please, my kids will sit under the tent/fort for HOURS doing nothing. But since it's a fort, it's fun. The toys that were boring 2.3 seconds before are wonderful.

Boys call it a fort, girls call it a castle or house. I don't care. It's a sheet thrown over a few chairs and/or table. It keeps them entertained in a more/less contained manner. Works for me. The little girls right now like to go in THEIR castle and color/paint. So it's set up on the kitchen floor, and no colors/paint is allowed outside the fort. Big deal if the table/chairs/floor/sheet get yet more paint/color on them. The boys have THEIR fort in the den where they play with the GI Joe and Transformers and whatever else they have in that. Keeps the mess contained in either way.

That and if they won't freeze to death in 30 seconds or be swept away by a tornado, there is no harm in going outside. Get out and run around like an idiot. Have fun squishing in mud and making mud pies.

 

[schellie69]

Thanks for all the replies I am Mema to these 2 little angels. I told mom to just let them go outside in the rain trust me an hour out side is fine. She did take them out today mud and all boy where both those girls a mess straight in to the tub.

I told my DD this is just the beginning she is now thinking about all the things she did as a kid to me and hoping her girls don't hear the stories about her youth. Just wait till they can understand Mema has the goods on mom

I love the fort idea my DH helped my son make a box fort in his room one time he slept in that thing.

 

[smcjoj3]

A few of our fun, go-to winter/rainy day activities are putting towels down on the kitchen floor and playing with buckets of water and cooking utensils, or floating toys or just whatever. Another fun activity, I buy big bags of dried beans, like kidney or black beans and dump them into a baking dish and let the kids play with measuring cups in them, or my son likes to push around cars and little bulldozers in the beans too. (you can use dried rice instead of beans - FYI my youngest will eat a few of the dried beans w/out my knowledge & they come out on the other end twice the size. lol) On occasion I have dumped half a bag of flour onto our island in the kitchen and let them play in it with little cars and toys....but it's insanely messy so it's only for when I am feeling motivated to take a hour to clean up the playtime disaster. --and like others said, Forts, painting, & playing out in the rain are all great things too!
There are a ton of parenting blogs with great ideas on the web.

 

[sourland]

Quote:
Ratting out your children to your grandchildren is one of the perks earned from having to deal with their behavior when they were growing up. Our grandchildren love to hear the stories about their mom or dad, and I love to tell them.

 

[lillie2202]

Not helpful sourland do not give her any ideas...please I still have to be able to handle them on my own....

LOL I am in so much trouble when they can really understand the stories of what I did to my mom when i was there age. One thing my mom has said to me time and time again is Grandkids are the reward for not killing your own kids when they really should have been.

My mom things it really funny when one of my DD's does something to me that i did to her when i was a kid. Then when I tell her what they did all she does is say rember when I told you that one day you would have to pay for everything you do to me well now you know what I ment when I said that to you. I just keep telling her its not funny and all she does is

.... I just hope one day I will get to say all this to my DD's.

Thanks everyone for the help. Thanks mom for always being there even when I was a really big pain in the butt.

You really are a great mom and Mema. LOVE YOU MOMMY. THANKS FOR NOT KILLING ME EVEN WHEN YOU REALLY WANTED TO.

 

[welsummerchicks]

You could do a scavenger hunt. Hide things around the house and call out the items for the kids to find. My mother used to hide little honey butter sandwiches when we were small.

My mom often had us sit down and listen to her read before our naps. That tended to get us 'unrevved' so we could relax and nap. I don't know if most parents these days still do an afternoon nap but it sure made us less crabby and tired later on in the day.

You could 'do' an adventure. Encouraging kids to act out a movie or cartoon or book. Some old clothes, a few props, easy stuff.

My mom once got a couple live lobsters on a rainy day, LOL, we were playing with those things til we were exhausted, LOL.

You can make play dough out of flour and a couple other cheap ingredients, it's easy to clean up, too.

We took a pottery class at the museum when we were very little, that was also free or very cheap. Museums in general do a lot of low cost to free activities for kids. But keep an eye out on the internet. There are tons of free activities for kids around and about. Book stores often do 'story telling time' and there are tons and tons of things out there to do.

I do still occasionally do 'kid days' though my health doesn't allow it much. My friends dropped off their kids at my house and I spent the entire afternoon exhausting them, LOL. Playing with the animals, cooking, things like that.

Kids LOVE to cook. Creaming butter and sugar, kneading bread, cutting out cookies, all good stuff. Frankly I'm amazed at how much kids can do. I used to have a couple 'kid proof' cutters for slicing vegetables, too.

One thing a friend of mine did with her kids was 'Mess Day'. They LOVED mess day. She did this in her barn but a shed or garage is fine. She took a couple buckets and filled them with pebbles, all sorts of objects, clay, water, mud, and the kids would stomp, squish, squeeze, throw and slop the hours away. She did a similar thing with washable paint. Put a big piece of paper down and the little monsters walked through the paint, put it on their hands and did all sorts of things. Cookie cutters (cut a design on a potato then use it for a stamp), string, and sticks to splatter paint with. If I recall she suggested a 'Run Naked Through the Neighborhood' day too. She would do ANYTHING to tire them out, LOL.

Another possibility is to let them use an old shed or garage temporarily to put up a tent inside, and make a 'fort'.

 

[RoeDylanda]

One thing that it took me a long time to figure out is that kids don't actually need huge numbers of things to play with-- especially as little as yours are! All kids have toys that they use all the time and others that just get played with now and then. I started filching the "now & thens" and putting them in 4-5 little plastic bins in the cellar (milk crate size). On stir-crazy rainy inside days, I'd bring out one bin and tell them it was only for the day. Amazing how much desirable time-limited toys are! Plus it kept the house neater.

There were enough bins to get through about a week of rotten weather, and I did let the kids substitute a different toy if they fell in love with something in the bin and couldn't bear to see it go. Good luck!