Day 151

Since it is so close to Christmas, help your children to make a Christmas wreath for a decoration. All you need is a paper plate and some green and red tissue paper. Tear up the green tissue paper into little bits and stick them all around the edges of the plate so that it looks like a wreath. Add some small pieces of red tissues as pretend berries and you have a lovely decoration.

Day 150

Help your children to make a vase with brightly coloured flowers.  Use an old cardboard tube, e.g. from a toilet roll or kitchen roll, as the base for a vase. Paint the tube or cover it with coloured papers. Then cut out flower shapes from coloured card and stick them onto drinking straws. Make a few fake leaves out of green card and stick them onto the straws. Place your children's beautiful creations in the vase and you have a lovely floral decoration. 

Day 149

Today, help your children to cut up some fruits and make a fruit salad. Let them smell, touch and taste the fruits as they work. They are learning about foods, shapes, sizes and colours and having fun.

Day 148

Make photo frames decorated with snowflakes. Your children can give these as gifts to relatives or friends. Have fun.

Day 147

Make bubble blowers out of yoghurt cartons. Cut circles out of the tubs, make your own bubble mixture out of washing up liquid and let the fun begin.

Day 146

Let your toddler help you with the washing up. Let him stand on a chair at the sink, fill it with water that is not too hot with washing up liquid and supervise as he has fun washing up anything that is not too valuable. The aim of this is not to get your washing up done but to let your child have fun with water play. Enjoy your time together.

Day 145

Cover two tables with cling film. On one table, spray on lots of shaving foam. Cover it with a second amount of cling film. On the second table, put out lots of liquid paint and cover it with more cling film. Now, let your children paint pictures using their fingers, on the two tables. This is a lovely sensory experience and your children will love it.

Day 144

Have you ever played Badminton with your young children? This is great fun because a shuttlecock behaves totally differently when hit, compared with a ball and your children will take a while to get used to how far it travels and how much force is needed to get it to the right place, etc. This is a good workout too as you have to keep moving to get to the shuttlecock before it hits the ground. Have fun everyone.

Day 143

Young children will enjoy this smelly activity today. You need some small containers with tiny holes in the lids. Place separate strong smelling foods in each of the tubs, e.g. a piece of orange in one, some onion in another, coffee grounds, cloves, etc.

The fun begins when you ask your children to sniff each of the containers and guess what is inside without looking. You might want to offer a small prize for each correct answer. Have fun. 

Day 142

Today, your young children will really have a fantastic time if you help them to make Rudolf the red nosed reindeer - using their feet for his face and their hands for the antlers. Help them to draw round one foot and cut this out for the face and draw round two hands, cutting them out and sticking them onto the top of Rudolf's face. Now, all you need to do is add eyes, a nose and a mouth and start singing the song together. Have fun.

Day 141

Today's activity is for very young children but older children may wish to join in too. Put on a few of your children's favourite pieces of music/songs and dance together. The fun will be great and you may get so carried away that the housework doesn't get done!

Day 140

Teach your young children a Christmas carol and talk about what it is about. If you are not sure, look it up on the internet and then you have all learned something new. Who knows, you might discover or encourage some musical talent.

Day 139

Even little children love helping their mums in the kitchen, so it is a good opportunity to teach them as they play and have fun. Think of ways to include your toddler, e.g. let him/her sprinkle grated cheese onto the lasagne before you put it in the oven, or sprinkle sugar over chopped fruit before cooking apple crumble. Before you know it, you might have a real cook or chef in the family. 

Day 138

Today's activity will be suitable for children, young and old. However, you need a collection of old Christmas cards but if you don't have any, save up this idea for next year. Hunt out the cards from last year and give a bundle to each child. Each will also need some scissors. Every card will have a different picture celebrating the holiday season and your children can cut out shapes from the cards to make their own gift tags. If you want, you can add short strips of coloured string or ribbon, (Punch a hole in each gift tag and attach the strings). Now, wrap your presents and add the gift tags to give your family and friends some unique creations.

Day 137

This activity is for older children or teens. Make a throw or decorative strip for each youngster's bed by selecting some fabric that they like. Next, get them to select some favourite photographs and take them with the fabric to a shop that copies photos onto material. Go back home.

Now, cut up the fabric so that each person gets their piece, stitch up the edges and finish by adding any designs or art work using fabric pens. Follow pen manufacturers' instructions to 'set' the ink and each child/teen has their own unique creation. Have fun.

Day 136 

Let your young children have a lovely sensory art session - let them paint/make a picture with food. There are a number of ways you could do this. You could give them fruits and ask them to create faces or other shapes by placing the fruit to make the face/shape. Or, you could make up some porridge, (add food colouring) or instant pudding, etc., put it in bowls and ask your children to use their fingers to paint a picture. The fun will not only be in the artwork, it will be in the eating of the art materials as they work. Sensory art + children = fun time.

Day 135

If you have young children, here is an activity they should enjoy doing with you. To do this, you need some plasticine and some magnetic letters or numbers. Give your children some small amounts of plasticine and let them explore and play with it - squishing, rolling, pushing fingers into, pulling it apart, etc. When they have finished exploring, ask them to roll some small balls. Then, stand your magnetic letters up, on a flat surface, like a table. The aim of the game is to see how many letters/numbers your child can knock down with a roll of the plasticine ball. Have fun playing magnetic bowls.

Day 134

Today is a snowy day so if it is snowing where you live, take your children and teenagers outside for some winter fun. Make snowmen, snow angels and have fun sledging. Keep wrapped up well and stay safe.

Day 133

Today, create your own colouring pages. You need some paper, pencils and colouring implements. One child draws a shape on the page, then the next one adds to it and so on until you have all had a turn. What sort of a creature have you made? Do the same again until each of you has your own, unique picture to colour in. Now have fun colouring and naming your inventions.

Day 132

Make pipe-cleaner animals or monsters.

If you want to make them multi-coloured, twist different coloured pipe-cleaners together before you make your animal.

Stick on eyes and ears if your animals need them, or maybe your monsters have two heads, etc. Be creative and have fun.

Day 131

Play a word game with your children or teenagers. An example is the, 'Don't say yes or no,' game. To play this, you create a set of questions which you ask to each child in turn. The child must not answer with a 'yes' or 'no.' Here are some examples:

Q. Do you like ice-cream?

A. I do.

Q. Did you have a bath and then go to bed?

A . I did not.

Q. Do you think Santa will get stuck up the chimney again?

A. No.  

So, the child is out. Etc. 

You can make the questions start off easy and then make them harder to catch the children out. Have fun.

Day 130

Today play a game I call, 'Jungle, Jungle.' Give each child some paper, pencils and felt-tips. Ask each child to choose an animal that lives in the jungle, but not to tell anyone else which animal they have picked.

Then, ask each child to draw their animal's tail on their own piece of paper. Next draw its head somewhere else on the page. Continue, until they have drawn all the major parts of their jungle animals.

Now, ask them to colour each part of their animal and cut out the separate parts. To finish, you can either ask each child to join their pieces up to make their complete jungle creature, OR you can ask each child to donate a piece of their animal to make a new one on a shared piece of paper. So, you might have the head of a giraffe, a body of a lion, the tail of a monkey and the legs of a hippo. What a strange animal that would be. Young children, especially will really giggle at this new beast. Have fun.

Day 129

Gather your children or teenagers around you to explain the rules of, 'Green Light, Red Light.'

The person in charge stands a distance away from everyone else, facing away from them. S/he says, 'Green Light.' Everyone moves closer to him/her until he says, 'Red Light.' They all must stop like statues. If anyone continues to move at all, they are out. The leader turns away and says, 'Green Light,' etc until he catches everyone out or until someone touches him. The person who was able to touch the leader becomes the new leader and calls out,'Green Light,' etc. Have fun.

Day 128

Today make a very special present for a favourite relative, e.g. granny. Let your children paint a picture of, 'My Gran.' Then, when the painting is dry, put it in a real picture frame and your child now has a picture for granny to treasure and put on display for all to admire. Have fun.

Day 127

Make a little stencil of a Christmas robin, (cut the robin out of a piece of card). Then, let your children place the stencil onto another piece of card and sponge paint inside the shape. Lift off the stencil and let the paint dry before decorating the inside of your Christmas card. Have fun and of course you could do this activity to make any type of card, not just a Christmas one.

Day 126

Today, play a game with your children that I call, 'cat calling.' To play it, you draw a circle on the ground, while everyone, except, 'it' goes and hides. 'It' then starts looking and the first one caught or spotted goes to stand in the circle. 'It' goes off to look for everyone else. The caught person in the circle then starts 'cat calling,' or making cat noises. The hiding children answer the cat calling by replying with cat noises of their own, still hoping not to be found. While 'It' is hunting, any children in the circle can go and hide with someone else, but they are not allowed to hide on their own. 'It' can then catch two or more children in the same hiding place and ask them to go to the circle before going off hunting again. This game can go on for a long time and children have a lot of fun, hunting and being hunted.

Day 125

Today, try something your children have never done before, like, horse riding or cycling. Have fun.

Day 124

Today, help your children to design their own personal door hangers. You can use the computer to design them or you can draw straight onto card. The messages can say anything your children want, like, "do not disturb", "keep out", "genius at work", or "if you've got sweets, come in." You get the idea; the message can say anything to mark your child's personal space. Hang the creations on the doors and have fun.

Day 123

If you have some tin foil in the house, here is a fun activity for you to do with your children: Make foil pictures. All you do, is, cover a piece of card with glue and then pop things onto the glue, e.g. beans, lentils, beads, buttons, wool, etc. Then cover the items with tin foil and rub over them with a little polish. (It should look like a brass rubbing when you've finished). Be creative and have fun.

Day 122

Today make paper snowflakes and then use them to decorate your home for Christmas or make greetings cards and add the home-made snowflakes.

This is a great activity to encourage creativity and develop fine-motor skills in young children. All you need is some white paper and scissors and away you go. Fold the paper into a small square, cut out some semi-circles from each of the 4 edges of the square and when you open out the folded paper, you have a beautiful snowflake. Have fun as you experiment with the cutting out and folding and remember, every snowflake in nature is different, so yours can be different too.

Day 121

This craft idea is for Christmas but it could be made at any time of the year and kept until the holidays. 

You need 24 small boxes, like matchboxes or miniature smarties boxes. Remove the contents of the boxes. Paint each box and make them as colourful as you like. When the paint has dried, paint a number on each box and these will represent the days in December leading up to Christmas Eve. You've guessed it. It is an advent calendar and it is a train with 24 carriages. The children will love it if you hide a small gift in each box so that they get a treat when they open one every day in December while waiting for Christmas. Enjoy.

Day 120

Today, take your children outside with a camera and let them take photographs of any birds you see. Photograph a variety of birds and then try to identify what type of birds you have seen. You can use library books or the internet to find out information on the birds in your photographs. Have fun.

Day 119

Today, you could set up a game of crazy golf for your young children, using plastic golf clubs and plastic golf balls. Instead of digging holes in your garden, you could cut out plastic semi-circles, (using empty milk containers) and place them at various points around the garden. Give points for getting the ball into each semi-circle and the one with the most points wins. Have fun.

Day 118

Today, take your children/teens to a park or forest with the intention of sketching plants. All you need to take with you is some drawing paper and pencils and go hunting for some interesting plants to draw. This activity helps your children to look at the world around them and notice the variety in nature. Have fun.

Day 117

Play, 'gaggle giggle.' To play this, one child/teenager lies on their back on the floor. The next child lies down on their back with their head lying on the other child's tummy. Continue until each child is lying down with their head on the tummy of the previous child. The first child says, 'giggle.' Number 2 says, 'giggle, giggle,' and the third says, 'giggle, giggle, giggle.' The result is that everyone ends up in fits of laughter. Have fun.

Day 116

Self-portraits Day. Have each child/teenager sit in front of a mirror to do a self-portrait. They can use crayons, pencils, felt-tips and/or paints. Use some card to make up mounts for these works of art and display them for visitors to see and admire. Have fun.

Day 115

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Today, play a board game, e.g. Monopoly. Most families enjoy this game, but it does take quite a bit of time to play it, so it might be best to play with older children and teenagers. Set up your game, choose which piece you will move around the board and away you go. Hours of fun!

Day 114

Today, get out some playdough (or make some) and create an even more sensory experience for your young children by adding rice or beans to it to give it texture. You can encourage their vocabulary by using words like, 'bumpy,' 'lumpy,' 'bitty,' 'rough' and 'not smooth.' Enjoy your time together.

Day 113

Today your children and teenagers will be creative. You need a shoe box for each person, some craft or PVA glue, (to be mixed 2 parts glue to 1 part water) and some magazines, (to cut out pictures).

Cut out pictures and make up the glue mixture. Stick the pictures to the box and then cover the pictures with glue and allow to dry.

You will have lovely colourful, shiny boxes to store little treasures, colouring pencils/arts and crafts items, jigsaw puzzles, etc. Have fun.

Day 112

Make some shakers with your children and turn on the music and have fun. You can use any size of tubes, e.g. Smarties, empty toilet rolls or kitchen roll tubes will do. Cut out two circles for each tube that are slightly bigger than the tubes and tape one to the tube. Fill each tube up to about two thirds with a rice shaped cereal and place the other circles over the remaining open ends and tape them in place. There you have some shakers to play along to your music.

Day 111

Today, make some greetings cards with your children or teenagers. You will need some card, pencils, pens and/or paints and then let the children be really creative with what they add to the cards to complete their pieces of art. These cards can be given to friends and relatives and will be appreciated far more than bought ones. Have fun together.

Day 110

Young children generally love music and singing and dancing, so choose a favourite cd or turn your ipod on and start dancing and singing together. Have a great time.

Day 109

Today play a messy game outside or put down newspapers or a plastic sheet if playing indoors.

You need to play in pairs and you need one water bomb or one raw egg per team. The aim is to throw and catch the item without it breaking/bursting. The pairs keep moving one step further away from each other whilst throwing and catching. The winners are the ones to keep their egg or water bomb intact for the longest.

Day 108

You can try this activity with children or teenagers. All you need is a variety of wrapped sweets and two plates or bowls for each player. The children take off their shoes and socks and the aim of the game is to lift sweets for the left plate using only the left foot and to lift sweets for the right plate using the right foot. When the whistle blows or the music stops, the winner is the player with the most sweets on their plates. Have fun.

Day 107

Children of all ages will enjoy this activity. Create a list of song titles, film titles, stories, etc. and write them on individual pieces of paper. Divide the children into two teams and explain that the aim of the game is to mime a title to your team so that they guess what it is without you speaking.  Pull out a piece of paper with a title on it and show it to the person who is going to do the mime. Every correct one guessed, without words being used gives your team a point. Go on, get started and have fun.

Day 106

If you have young children, gather them beside you on a sofa or bed and wrap a big quilt or blanket around you all and call it your story blanket. Then, with everyone feeling nice and cosy, make up a story together, with each of you taking turns at suggesting what happens next. If one of the children gets stuck on their part of the story, offer suggestions to help them. This piece of fun will be building happy memories for all of you to draw on in the future.

Day 105

Today, play a game of chess with your teenager. Don't know how to play? If your teenager doesn't know either, have fun looking up the rules together on the internet and just have a go. Who knows, you might discover you have a hidden talent in logical thinking. 

Day 104

Here's an idea to help your children with literacy and physical fitness. You need a clipboard for each child, 7 clothespegs and some felt-tipped pens and cards. Each child writes their name on a card and pins it to the top of their clipboard. They then write out 6 words that they are learning in school, each word on a separate card and pin the cards to their own clipboard. So, each child has a clipboard with their name and 6 other words on their board. Now, each child places their board at the 'finish line' (at the end of the garden or yard/decking) and then comes back to the starting position.

Now, the leader shouts out one of the words on the cards and each child runs to their own board, removes the correct word and runs back to the leader with the card. A point is given for each correct card and the winner is the one with the most points. Have fun.

Day 103

Sock Dolls. Today, if you can find any odd socks, here is a craft activity that your children will enjoy. As well as socks you will need some foam or old cut up tights for stuffing inside the sock to create the doll's head. Fill the sock with stuffing up to 3/4 and seal it with an elastic band. Cut the remaining 1/4 of the sock in little strips.(This becomes the hair when painted)

Next, create the facial features by squeezing out a nose from the foam and tying an elastic band around it, paint on eyes and a mouth and paint the hair and you have a SOCK DOLL.

Day 102

Today, set something on a table, e.g. a vase with some flowers, a bowl of fruit, a collection of toys, etc. and let everyone draw what they see. (all you need is paper, pencils and paint). Have fun.

Day 101

Physical exercise is vital to maintaining good health, so do something active with your children or teenagers today. Have a game of basketball. All you need for this is a raised goal, (hoop) and a ball, and start shooting into the hoop to gain points. You will all have so much fun doing this, that you will want to play every day. So, what's stopping you?

Day 100

Today, make a pencil holder to sit on your child's desk. All you need is an empty toilet roll holder, a circle of card to fit the bottom of the tube and some paints to decorate it, or some cut out images of something your child likes, to stick all over the tube. Have fun together and enjoy using it to keep pencils tidy.

Day 99

If you have some outdoor space, set up an obstacle course for your children and have fun timing each other going round the course. If you can't get outside to do this, you can still make an obstacle course indoors using cushions, furniture, etc. You can even give the person whose turn it is a bag to carry round the course, just to make it a bit more difficult. Be inventive and have fun.

Day 98

Play a counting game while skipping. An example is,

'Cinderella dressed in yella

went downstairs to kiss her fella

How many kisses did she give him?'

one...two...three, etc.

The winner is the one who skips up to the highest number without stopping the skipping rope.

Day 96

Make a picture with your children to show the changing seasons. One way to do this is to divide a page into four sections, (one for each season) and show what each season looks like. You could show a house with a garden and how it looks in each season or you could just show one tree in the garden and how it changes with each season. Let your children use their imaginations to be creative at this stage and enjoy your time together.

Day 95

Today's activity will be a real treat for the girls. Play, 'Beauty Salons' and give each other a manicure. Enjoy.

Day 94

Today make cards with your children. All you need is some card, pencils, felt tips, paints and bits of material/beads, etc. Ask the children to choose a design to draw or paint onto the card. One example is to make a butterfly card for gran's birthday. Fold the card in half and on one half draw the shape of butterfly' wings with the middle of the wings touching the fold-line. Cut out the shape and open along the fold to produce a symmetrical butterfly. Now, colour, paint or decorate the card as the children choose and write a message to the person who will receive the card.

Day 93

Ask your children to draw Halloween pictures onto card. (Pumpkins, cats, witches, fireworks, etc.) When the pictures are finished, turn the cards over and draw jigsaw shapes on the back. Then, cut out the jigsaw pieces and have fun doing the halloween puzzles. 

Day 92

Take your children on a fun adventure today. You can go to the woods, a park, the seaside or visit a museum. It doesn't matter which venue you choose, so long as you make it into an adventure, the children will really enjoy themselves.

Day 91

Today, have a go at making your own cartoons together. For each cartoon you will need about 10 pages. Draw your cartoon on the first page, then on the next and subsequent pages, make slight changes to make the character move. Flip your cartoon pages to see your finished animation. You can make this as simple or as complicated as you like depending on the ages of your children and you can add different backgrounds, etc. Have fun.

Day 90

Play, 'Last one Out.' One person is, 'on' and everyone else runs away, trying not to be caught. When a person is touched, they are also, 'on' and help the first person to catch the others. Last one caught is the winner and then is first to be 'on' for the next game. Have fun.

Day 89

Here is an activity to keep the children happy whilst travelling: play, 'name that tune.' One person hums a tv theme tune and everyone takes turns at guessing the name of the programme. Have fun.

Day 88

Help each of your children to make a placemat. One way to do this is to use a digital camera to take pictures of each child and print them out. Each child sticks his picture onto the centre of card. They then decorate around the picture by drawing or sticking on pictures of toys etc that they have cut out of magazines. When they are happy with their efforts, cover the placemats with sticky-back plastic or laminate them. Enjoy your meals.

Day 87

Since it is Autumn, collect some different leaves that have fallen and make some leaf-pictures for Autumn using fingerpaints. (Yellow, orange, brown and red).

Day 86

Teach your children/teenagers how to skip. Once they've mastered skipping, teach them some skipping rhymes, e.g. All In Together Boys.  I may not have remembered all the words of this from when I was a child, but here goes anyway.

You need a long rope or a few ropes tied together and you need a rope turner at each end. Everyone says the rhyme and jumps in together to skip. When your birthday month is called out, you jump out without standing on the rope. Anyone who does stand on the rope is out.

All in together boys,

this fine weather boys,

I spy a lark,

sitting in the dark.

January

February

March, etc.

Last person skipping is the winner and hard luck if your birthday is in January because you are always one of the first to go out. Have fun and enjoy the exercise.

Day 85

Get out paints and paper and let your children paint pictures of bats and pumpkins for Halloween. For the bats, they can paint their hands and place them on paper for the bats' wings. They can then paint on bats' bodies, eyes, etc. Have fun being creative.

Day 84

Sign your teenagers up for an activity they haven't tried before, like, hip hop. Then, step back and watch them enjoy themselves.

Day 83

Make bracelets and give them as presents for friends or family or sell them for a favourite charity. For this activity you need some beads in different colours and some string/elastic. Have fun.

Day 82

Today, make dot-to-dots: you just need paper and pencils/colouring pencils. Take turns with your children to draw dots on paper to make a picture for colouring in. If the children know numbers, put numbers on your dot-to-dots, if they are younger, just give them colour clues so they can join the dots and then colour in their pictures. Have fun.

Day 81

Play 'Flour Castles.' You need a table, flour, newspapers, a sweet and a knife. Place newspapers around your table, put flour on the table and shape it into a castle, placing a sweet on the top. Each person must slice a bit of flour off the castle without dislodging the sweet. When the sweet falls, the one with the knife must retrieve it using their mouth only and not using hands. Great fun.

Day 80

Today, hunt out all the old Christmas cards from last year and magazines that you have finished reading. Let your children cut out pictures from these to create a collage on any theme you decide together would be good. Keep chatting and have lots of fun.

Day 79

Play, 'Simon Says.'

One person is 'Simon' and says, "Simon says, touch your nose, Simon says, jump on one foot, Simon says, sit down," etc. At any point Simon can give an instruction without saying, Simon says.' e.g. 'Stand up.' If anyone obeys that command, they are put out because he did not say, 'Simon says, stand up.' Got it? Have fun and see who is last to be out.

Day 78

Today, give your children pencils/pens and paper and ask them to write you a secret message. However, the tricky bit is, they must write the letters backwards without looking in a mirror. Easier said than done. Have fun reading your messages.

Day 77

Play, 'Doggy doggy where's your bone?' To play this, 'doggy' sits on a chair with an object under the chair. The object can be anything but it is representing a dog's bone. Doggy has his back to the other children and has his eyes clothes. One child creeps up and steals the bone, hiding it somewhere on his person. They all say, 'Doggy doggy where's your bone?' If doggy guesses correctly, he stays as the dog. If he guesses incorrectly, the child who stolethe bone becomes the dog. Have fun with this.

Day 76

Let your imaginations go wild and create your own castle out of furniture, table cloths and cushions. Pretend to be king, queen, princes and princesses and make up your own story to act out together. Have fun.

Day 75

Play 'Queenie-o, Queenie-o, Who's got the ball-e-o.'

To play this game you just need a small ball, e.g. a tennis ball. Have the children stand at a distance behind you. Turn away from them and throw the ball backwards over your head to the children. Don't peek because they are going to hide the ball behind one of their backs while they say, ''Queenie-o, Queenie-o, Who's got the ball-e-o.' The one who threw the ball has to guess who is holding the ball. If you get it right, you throw the ball again until you make a wrong guess. Then, the child that is holding the ball gets to be the ball-thrower and the game continues until everyone has had a turn. Have fun.

Day 74

Today, take your teenagers to a go-karting centre and let them have fun racing each other in a controlled environment. They will have great fun and they  might even let the old parents join in too. Enjoy your outing.

Day 73

I love the game, 'Hide and Seek.' Here's a new and fun way to play it. Only one person goes to hide while the others count to 20. They shout, 'Here we come, ready or not.' They all try to find the hider. As each person finds him/her, they hide with them until everyone has joined in with hiding. Last person to hide with everyone else is now the one to go and find a good hiding place. It's a bit of a crush but great fun.

Day 72

Today, visit a beach and collect one pebble each to make a paper-weight. Wash the pebbles and when they are dry, paint a picture or design on the pebbles. When the paint is dry, varnish the pebbles and allow the varnish to harden. Hey presto, you have made lovely paper-weights for yourselves or you could give them as presents. Have fun.

Day 71

Try out some marble art with your children. You will need a tray to hold water, that's bigger than your paper. Add a few drops of oil-based paint in a variety of colours. Place your paper on the surface of the water and lift out and allow it to dry. The blending of colours will look fantastic. You can then use the paper as wrapping paper or just brightly coloured notelets. Enjoy.

Day 70

Today do some physical exercise together by going cycling. Make sure to stay on cycle routes or where there is no traffic for safety. Enjoy your time together.

Day 69

Here is an old favourite game of mine: 'Hide the Object.' You can choose any small object to hide, e.g. a button. Ask the children to go into another room while you hide the object. Bring them back into the room and ask them to find it. If they go near it, say, 'you're getting warm,' or if they go further away, 'you're very cold.' The one who finds it gets to hide it next. Have fun.

Day 68

Play dodgeball. The person with the ball is 'on' and the aim is to touch another person with the ball while they are running away. (Use a soft ball) The person touched by the ball is now 'on.'  Have fun dodging the ball.

Day 67

Today, get out the board game, 'Scrabble 'and enjoy spending quality time together trying to spell out words. Part of the fun of this game is the discussion that goes with people's choice of words and their meanings. It might be a good idea to have a dictionary handy and a 'no cheating' rule. Have fun.

Day 66

For today's activity, you need two different colours of balloons and have the same number of each, e.g. ten red and ten yellow balloons. Divide the children/teenagers into two groups; the red team and the yellow team. Each team guards their own balloons but tries to steal as many of the other team's. The winning team is the one with the most stolen balloons. This game is boisterous and extreme fun. Enjoy.

Day 65

Today take your children Ten Pin Bowling. It is a great social activity and your children will be learning gross motor skills, hand-eye co-ordination and so much else, as well as having fun.

Day 64

Have a go at making pizza together. You can use ready made pizza bases, and just add the tomato sauce, cheese, ham, pineapple, tomato, peppers, etc for the topping. The real fun comes when you have heated it and you get to share it together. Lovely.

Day 63

This is an activity to be done in twos and you will need some building blocks/lego.

One partner builds something that the other cannot see. The builder then describes what the other is to build without touching the lego or letting his partner see. The winner is the one whose building looks most like the original.

Day 62

Make your own bubbles. Young children will really love this activity. All you need is a plate or bowl for each child, a straw for each child and some washing up liquid. Put a few drops of washing up liquid onto each plate, add some water and tell the children to blow very gently and slowly through their straws. Who can make the biggest bubble?

Day 61

Play a simple game of, 'Tag,' or some people call it, 'Tig.'  Play this game outside. All you need is a group of children, shout, 'I'm it,' or 'I'm on' and start chasing the children. When you touch one of them, that child is, 'it' and runs to touch someone else. Keep going until they all get exhausted or have to go back inside again. Have fun and you won't have to go to keep-fit classes after this game.

Day 60

This activity needs to be done outside, so wait until the weather is  good. Take an old sheet and hang it up on a washing line. Then fill plastic bottles with equal amounts of water and liquid paints that are safe for children. Then let the children spray paints onto the hanging sheet. Wonderful works of art will be guaranteed. Have fun.

Day 59

We all like to look at photos of ourselves and family, so today make photo frames with your children and then either keep them or give to grandparents for presents.

Cut out 2 pieces of card measuring about 15cm x 20cm. Cut out a rectangle from the middle of the card. Paint/decorate the frame edges in any creative way your children like and add a favourite photograph to complete the picture. Have fun.

Day 58

Today get out drawing paper, pencils and felt-tips and draw your own cartoon characters. Make up your own little comic books. Have fun.

Day 57

Opposites. Use a soft, sponge ball the size of a football. Throw the ball to each child in turn and give an instruction: catch or head. If you say catch, the child has to head the ball, if you say head, the child has to catch it. It is an opposites game. Have fun.

Day 56

Play Hop Sticks. To play this, place about ten sticks on the ground in the shape of a ladder, (about ten inches apart). Each player takes turns to hop over each stick without touching a stick. When you have hopped over the last stick, bend down and pick it up without putting the other foot down. Then, hop back over the other sticks to the beginning, again without touching any or putting the other foot down. Pick up the last one, etc. The winner is the person who kept hopping, didn't put the other foot down, didn't touch any sticks with the hopping foot and picked up all the sticks. Happy hopping.

Day 55

Time for more role-play: set up some bowls of water with washing up liquid and sponges and tell the children they are running a, 'car-wash.'

However, they will not be washing the car; they will be washing their own outdoor play equipment, scooters, tricycles, bicycles, swing, etc. Adult supervision is vital during this activity with water!

Day 54

Show your children how to lean heavily while using crayons to draw a picture, e.g. fish in the sea. Then use paint, (in my example, blue for the sea), to go over the page and create a lovely effect as the paint will not cover up any of the crayon marks. Your children will enjoy doing this, so have fun.

Day 53

Today get out the cooking implements, bun cases, a big bar of chocolate and some Rice Krispies or Cornflakes. Let the children break up the squares of chocolate, then let them watch you melt the chocolate to pour over the krispies. The children can stir it all up and spoon the mixture into the bun cases. When the chocolate has gone solid again, enjoy the feast. 

Day 52

Make hand-print presents. You will need: fabric paints, paintbrushes and a dish towel or oven mitt.

Let your children paint their hands with paint.  Place their painted hands on the dish towel and/or oven mitt. Be creative, follow the instructions on the paint to let it set and have fun.