With the Christmas vacation coming up I thought I might offer my ideas for keeping kids occupied. I used to work in a day care and my daughter and I ran our own daycare. So here are some of the things that I can offer.
MATCHING GAME
You need
A large sheet of poster board or cardboard
Several shoes and/or boots of all sizes- only one of each pair
Paint - several differant colors would be nice but not absolutely necessary
Out of your child's view
Put a thin coat of paint in a pie pan or paint pan.
Gently set shoe in just enough to get it on the tread of the shoe or boot.
Make a print on the poster board and then clean off shoe.
Repeat with more shoes or boots til you have several differant ones on there.
The child is going to match shoes to the outline so don't repeat the same shoe or boot.
After it dries set the poster board out with the shoes and let the kids try to match the shoes to the shoe print. The more you have the longer the game will take to play.
CONTACT PAPER PICTURES
Take clear contact paper and cut a piece the size of a place mat. Take the backing off the paper and tape this to the table
with the sticky back face up.
You can give them things to make pictures with.
Magazines they can cut out pictures from
Straws to cut up and arrange in pictures
Fabric scraps and colored paper
Yarn and ribbons and lace
Buttons
Old Christmas Cards and wrapping paper
Rubber bands
Ric Rac and old zippers
Old calendars to cut up
Pipe cleaners
Old jewelry if it is light and can lay flat
You can also use things you pick up outside on a walk like leaves and grass and thin sticks etc.
PIPE CLEANERS
Give them pipe cleaners and help them make funny animals or people shapes. Lots of differant colors are great for more imaginative play. We used to use them and stuck them through flowers to make flower ladies. A large flower facing down for the skirt and a smaller one on top for the head. Silk or plastic flowers would work for this.
SHAVING CREAM
You may want to use paint shirts for this!
You can spray some shaving cream on the table in front of each child and let them play in it. It has a great smell and they love making roads in it and making silly faces with it! And it cleans up easily.
Another version:
You can spray some into a zip lock bag and add some drops of food coloring. Then close the bag tight.
Let them "massage" the bag and the food color will begin to mix with the shaving cream making some interesting designs.
ZIPPERS
When my grands were little I had a box of old zippers. They loved to sit and work the zippers or throw them up in the air. Joey especially loved them. He spent hours playing with them when he was about 2. It is a great sensory toy.
MASKING TAPE
Use long strips of tape and lay them on the floor to create a continuos long line of tape. I like to do it in a serpentine style making circles and curls so it covers the space but not crossing the tape line over itself anywhere. Then take tape pieces and color them with magic markers. Just enough to be able to clearly see the color. Set these pieces on the line at intervals no wider than a reasonable step for a child from one piece to the next one. The kids can help create these pieces. I give them the markers and tell them to color each piece or to color on the tape line itself.
I made a spinner out of cardboard or if you have a spinner from another game use that. If you don't have a spinner you can just call out the colors or numbers yourself randomly or let one child be the caller.
You can say Johnny go 2 spaces. Betsy go 9 spaces or Ben go to the next yellow. Kay go to the next blue. Gage go back to the last red one.
You can incorporate any rules you want to from board games.
I have done the tape in a square and used the sorry rules. The kids are the game pieces. It works really well.
Young kids love to just walk the line also.
Another version is to cut out (or have them cut out) foot prints in construction paper and lay them out on the floor. Tape them down to make them stay in place. Then the child or kids can follow the trail to the end ( possibly for a treat or surprise)
the kids can take turns laying the trail for the rest.
Another version - the Maze
Using the tape layout a maze on the floor. Make it easy or hard depending on the age of your players. When I worked at daycare and had the school age kids I had one boy that challenged me all the time to come up with one he couldn't solve!
This could also just be done on paper if you don't want to use tape. Challenge the child to build a maze and let them stump you!
IMITATION SAND
You can use uncooked rice in place of sand. I lay down a sheet to catch the overflow and then I put rice in a deep tub and give the kids measuring cups and spoons to play in it like sand.
Caution: little ones might try to eat it so that is not a good thing.
PAINT
One of my favorite things to do with the kids is to have them make ink blots with paint. I love the designs that come out of this.
You can give them things like toy cars to get paint on the tires and run that across paper and make an interesting design. Straws dipped in paint create neat circles. Put a little bit of paint in the bottom of a straw and blow out onto paper for a great design- not recommended for little ones tho!
Cut an apple or a potatoe in half and use it as a stamp.
I use paper plates to give each child his /her own paint pallette.
A garbage bag makes a great paint shirt. Just tear a hole for the head and one for each arm to go through and you have a ready made paint shirt that you can just throw away when they are done. I use these all the time. The kids think it is so funny to wear a trash bag!
Well that is all for now! Feel free to add anything you know that would be great for keeping kids entertained!! I am sure I will remember more and willl add again later.