Ideas please?

Baking if indoors . If in the garden and interested in some science give them a big bowl of water and a selecti.on of objects. They have to look at the objects and decide if they will float or not and then experiment to see if they guessed right. According to their age children will have different ideas of what will float/sink, keeps them happy for ages.

Have a selection of stickers ribbons scraps of wrapping paper along with felt pens and glue sticks to make cards for Mummy or whoever they want to make one for. You can buy blank cards at pound shops. My grandaughter likes being creative with no set way of doing it as a lot of the craft kits they are given are very prescriptive.

Like gillybob my kids used to have a tent. It can keep them busy for hours and hours - particularly if it involves tent pegs and guy ropes (you'll have to do the banging in of the pegs yourself I guess).
They can sleep in it, make dens, play house in it, shops, hospitals, pirates or whatever. If they're vaguely controllable you can get one of those disposable BBQs and do some cooking. Or just take food outside so they can make their own sandwiches and snacks - much less trouble than cleaning up the kitchen, table, chairs and floor after inside cooking or meals.....

A garden hose or paddling pool is always fun. Picnic in the garden whilst wet after the pool is lovely.

I just got my 2 GSs helping me paint the summerhouse - now that was messy!!

Fantastic ideas here. We built a lovely bug hotel with flat bits of old fencing,shells,old flower pots,pine cones and old garden canes. All stacked up in floors. We also have decorated small branches ( eg from.our orange blossom tree)with coloured wool, rick rack, bits of ribbon, string, embroidery threads, threaded beads and buttons. Tie a ribbon end to end and hang from tree. Magic potions from petals etc, were successful with both sexes. Paddling pool a great hit always - even when not particularly hot! We have a small pond and pond dipping always exciting our newts now line up with resignation to enter jam jars!

What's the time Mr Wolf? and Grandmothers footsteps are fun and don't require any props.
If the worst comes to the worst you could resort to Dead Lions!

Shysal, that's a great website. Thank you. I plan to make great use of it in a couple of weeks. Perhaps I'll have a trial run for my own entertainment as well as a boost for my confidence. Yippee!

All my GC have liked nothing more than a big box. GD1 used to make a house or a car when she could find a suitable box in my house. The ones domestic appliances come in are ideal. This would be a fine occupation if it's too wet/cold/windy to play outside.

My darling GD came to stay with us when she was around 4 years old and when I asked her what she would like to do she answered "decorate your Xmas tree". It was early November and I had no tree nor brought the decorations down from the loft yet. However she insisted we could decorate the wine rack so we did. We made all the decorations and by the time she went home it looked the best Xmas tree I have ever had. Just do what takes their fancy nothing is impossible with a little imagination LOL

NemosMum x-posts!!

Haven't read all the thread so sorry if someone has already suggested a sprinkler. Ours was £5 from Tesco - last Sunday our 4 GC spent a good 30 minutes just jumping in it or trying to dodge the spray. Our lawn is lovely and green in that patch where 8 little feet helped soak the water into the very dry grass.

Love all the ideas in this thread. I can vouch for the tent idea as a no fuss way of entertaining. If the weather is good, letting the kids loose in an oscillating garden sprayer is a great idea for this age.

Lots of outdoor messy craft activities (shaving foam, playdoh), finding everyday objects and making a picture with them, water play, bug hunt, walk to the park or local shops to get a treat, help prepare the meals and clear away, wash all the dolls' clothes, team games- sports and board, writing stories, dressing up, drawing natural objects, teach them a new skill, a local litter pick up (my granddaughter loves to do that and we talk about what we find and how rude people are to drop it!!), take the dog out, painting stones and doing a puppet shop etc.

Brilliant ideas here! I shall make a note of them for future reference, although I rarely have the DGC here for very long.

Regarding the tidying up thing, I stayed with my DD the other week, and she was battling to get the 4 & 8 year olds to tidy up their toys. I used one of those fidget-spinners, and devised different games, e.g. who could pick the most up by the time it stopped spinning/find all the cars/red toys/books.....etc. It worked, but I wonder if it's lasted!

My four year old GS loves to draw on the patio with chalk. He says it is a very big page! You can get pavement chalks for £1, so it's a cheap option.

Cover the table with a plastic sheet and try painting, card making, paper mache. Paints and card making equipment for children are quite cheap and paper mache only needs a flour and water paste and newspaper. I haven't had so much luck with outdoor games except for playing in the creek which seemed very popular back in the now distant (for us) summer.

Check out Mad Marc- Sublime Science. You may have seen all the Dragon's fighting over him on Dragon's Den a couple of years back.
He is a young man who wants to bring science to children in a really fun way- he has won so many awards it is impressive.
You can download some free experiments to do with your GC using stuff you have around the house.
We joined his club & have hundreds of experiments to try. My 6 GC (3-12 years old) love them- even the most simple ones - like making Slime (not as horrid as it sounds!) keep them amused for hours & they are earning at the same time. TBH I really enjoy doing them too!

If they can swim a bit or like water swimming can be great fun and it really tires them out.

any playgrounds nearby? its good to have somewhere else to go when you run out of ideas.
a bag of playmobil or other figures keeps them amused, they can lose themselves in an elaborate game without much input, let them use their imagination. A huge roll of cheap wall lining paper and some felt tips or paints, they can draw around each other and paint a big self portrait. Make paper bunting or cards for whoevers birthday is next.

Assuming not being able to drive at the moment doesn't mean you're confined to the house, you could maybe take them somewhere by train or bus? So many kids go everywhere by car these days that some of them find this quite an adventure (I'm told!).

One of the things we do with my three granddaughters is take them to one of the ceramics cafés, where they each choose a white pottery item then sit and paint it. Their pieces are then glazed and fired and ready for collection about a week later. It can be quite expensive. but at least there's something to show for it at the end.

In my experience children that age love "helping", so if the weather isn't good enough for all the super outdoor activities, get the smallest children invovled in dusting chair legs - they are much better able to crawl around the living room or kitchen floor with a duster, than we are!
The older ones will probably be less interested in housework, but you should be able to get them to help make dinner (peeling or scrubbing potatoes and the like.)

Baking is perhaps a good idea too. When I make biscuits with small children I prepare the dough on my own beforehand, then get them to help rolling it out and cutting out shapes, either plain round biscuits with a shape or a glass or the funny sort, if you still have a set of animal or fairy tale shapes somewhere in the kitchen.

It's probably best to do the baking, while the children are doing something else.

www.wildlifewatch.org.uk have a great kids page with lots of outdoor/ indoor activities and free downloads.

Eating outside

Anything that makes a mess.

Making vegetabke faces on the top of homemade pizza

Hopscotch

'I spy' walk round the neighbourhood eg house with a blue door, tree with pink flowers etc