Simple Games for 5 year old

My grandsons aged 4 & 6 love playing with water in the kitchen. Towels on the work surface for splashes, a little stool to stand on, a bowl of water and lots of jugs/funnels/whisks/beakers/spoons etc . They love it

Play dough do you have the recipe to make it at home? [much cheaper than buying it} then rolling pin, blunt knife, cutters, bun tins. Not on carpet of course.

Dressing up in anything around, scarves a favourite.

Big boxes to sit in.

cutting and gluing of any sort. Let them use grown up scissors if you are watching them, it is a pain to use blunt scissors as you know. Train them to be careful of course.

Gardening - a bit of digging. Hide and seek.
Cooking. (real or pretend - my DIL used to give them a big messy bowl of different ingredients to make a bit messy bowlful with)
Drawing games - noughts and crosses, maybe hangman when he is a teeny bit older.
Jigsaws - charity shops sometimes have lots.
Also things like picture dominoes if you see them in a charity shop.

My 5 year old granddaughter is with me now so I asked her what she likes playing.She said "pretend" games like schools (she has to be the teacher of course ) and hospitals.She also said party games like "Simon says".Her twin brother is building something with lego which he loves.Must go now as I've got to watch a "gymnastic show" which she has been preparing.The teddies are watching too !

Hide and seek.

Lots of clothes for dressing up, not bought outfits but bits and pieces from family wardrobes and charity shops.

One of my GCs favourite game is where I get about ten old cards and chop them in to two (or three if a bit older). I hide one half round the house and they get given the other half (one at a time as they return the whole card). Off they go and search for the other half. The one who gets the most is the winner or if there is only one child they can just take pleasure in finding them. Also they all love it if I hide "treasure" round the house (or garden).

Bubbles - tots enjoy them; and older children enjoy the challenge of catching them on the wand and re-blowing. My 4 year old GS's record is 5 lots of bubbles from one dip!

Tents or 'dens' out of cushions and old sheets
'Pirates' - have 3 foot size pieces of newspaper. They have to find ways of getting from the 'boat' which is one piece of newspaper to the 'island' - could be the settee - using just the other twor pieces of newspaper [using them as stepping stone - but you don't tell them that!]
Simple memory games - a number of items on a tray. Study it then take one away when they're not looking
Card games like pellmanism[?] ie matching game - numbers or suits.
If the weather's nice - collecting bits and pieces from the garden eg something hard, something smooth etc

I Ours (four, ages 5 up to 10) love big cardboard boxes that can become anything. Last one was a camper van that went to india and then the moon.

Simple dice games like snakes and ladders and build a teddy which is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle but you throw the dice and need a different number for each body part the first one to build the teddy is the winner.

Dressing up clothes, teasets, a craft box with all kinds of bits and pieces in it,hiding objects around the house to find, etch a sketch, anything really that uses imagination.

Also any kind of cooking or baking activities

You can get fabulous bubble kits in Poundland, cannot remember how much they cost

For children who like board games, Tummyache is brilliant. Everyone from three year olds to adults can play. Other than that cutting, sticking and making things from bits of rubbish passes many happy hours!

Wow thanks everyone fantastic ideas here I shall definately use some of these next time he comes.

Just a recap. Had GS over and tried the `put lots of items on a tray then remove one`. This went down well, mind you he likes to alter the games a bit so we had to firstly say what everything was (each time) then the removed item had to be hid so he could find it.

We also did cutting up cards and hiding one piece so he had to find the matching bit.

Also we thought up a game ourselves, so passing it on.

Fishing

Got a stick from the garden and tied a bit of string to it then hubby tied a magnet to the end of the string.

I cut out lots of paper fish shapes and got GS to draw a face on each one. Then we stapled a couple of staples close together on each fish thereby making them magnetised.

He got in the `boat` a large container I have for soaking the racks in the oven for cleaning. We scattered the fish around then he caught them on his line.

When we do this next time I might blind fold him to make it a bit harder.