Entertaining Children

I hope in due course to expand significantly on this page but for now here are my favourite entertaining kids, whatever the weather, idea and party game.

Treasure hunt

I think the best cure for clingy children is to lay on a treasure hunt.  Tell them what is planned and watch them happily wave goodbye to whoever dropped them off and, with my own children, it is definitely a favourite activity.  One day, I ended up doing eight in a day, by the end of which my brain was numb for new ideas of places.

With young children, I would recommend a picture treasure hunt; for example, the Mr Men. You need to draw (if you are artistic) or print-off (if you are not and have access to the internet) or if you have the books, you can hide the actual books and then the children, having been given the first character, find what they think the character needs; for example, Mr Sneezy would need a handkerchief and then in the handkerchief drawer, you might have Mr Jelly who needs to go to the fridge, etc. etc.

As children get older, you can ask questions for them to read or have read, such as “What do we do with dirty clothes?” or something that has several options, for example, needing to wash hands if you have more than one set of taps.

There can be a range of themes for the treasure hunt such as times, i.e. 7 o’clock might be in bed, 8 o’clock at the breakfast table, 9 o’clock putting on shoes to go outside.

To make it harder for older children, you can scramble letters or go to the unobvious option; it took mine ages to work out that one place a clean towel would be was in the swimming bag ready for Tuesday.

The treasure does not have to be expensive and although sweets are often popular, it can also be a good excuse to recycle things from old party bags that they have forgotten about.

My favourite party game

This game is not only politically correct (there are no losers) but it is also a game that can be extended to the amount of time needed and themed to an individual child’s taste.

The simplest version of the game involves music, a dice and six bits of A4 paper numbered 1 to 6.

Lay the bits of paper round the room, play the music and when the music stops the children go to a number.  You then roll the dice and those on the corresponding number are the winners for that round (you will be even more popular if you give them a sweet).

In between rounds, the children can be asked to do different things from the way they move around the room (hopping, skipping, jumping, dancing, etc.) to themed dancing or moving round in groups of certain numbers or in a chain with those who were on the same number as them last round.

As I have said, it can be adapted and themed and, for example, with a jungle theme, you could replace the numbers with animals and make your own dice with animal pictures each side, and the children can walk around roaring like lions or waving their hands like elephants.  I was even persuaded to include a kangaroo in my jungle!

I always find this to be a really popular game and a great time-filler with young and older children.

I hope these ideas are helpful and please do let me know how you get on.