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lapazfarm
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| Posted: July 25 2011 at 6:49pm | IP Logged
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Oh, goodness. I know the vast majority of the country is in the middle of a heatwave/drought right now, but here it is cold and rainy (as it is most of the year)and I know it is only going to get worse as the year progresses into fall.
I am desperate for things for the younger set (boys 5 and 7, and girl 9) to do to keep them occupied on dreary days indoors. I do send them out in it, but it gets old after days on end, you know? They HAVE to have some indoors quiet time. And they have to have it separately for the most part because they fight. A lot. *sigh* And they are not really big readers yet so I can't just say, "Go read" like I could with my older kids who were early readers.
So I need some fresh ideas and lots of them. Can you help a desperate mama/grandma out?
So far I have:
Legos
marble run blocks
wooden train set
art supplies (which are going unused lately for some reason)
iPod with audiobooks
tons of library books
play-doh
limited computer time
Leapster
oobleck
geoboard
pattern blocks
These work for a little while, but they are getting bored with all of these same old things. Help!
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Theresa
us-schooling in beautiful Fairbanks, Alaska.
LaPaz Home Learning
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: July 25 2011 at 7:00pm | IP Logged
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A couple of suggestions that may not be actual activities.
Do you have some high shelves or somewhere that you could light a candle (or three)? For some reason the candle really helps with the dreary days even though they don't really give out THAT much light.
If you can handle scents in the house cinnamon is supposed to be helpful.. it's warm and is supposed to help lift the mood AND help with focus and calmness.
Art supplies sometimes need inspiration. Do you have a special Saint Day or something coming up where you can tell them you need decorations for a section of wall or for the dinner table or something? My kids got the biggest kick out of coloring pictures for the walls for Easter.. we had eggs and flowers and bunnies and butterflies cut our of printed coloring pages after they were colored.. and hung up on the walls all around the living room. The kids liked it so well we even have a wall where we have flowers and butterflies though we did condense them and take off the eggs and bunnies.
I have kids that periodically really love learning to tie knots.. usually when someone is learning a special knot for boy scouts or something. I have a box of short (6') ropes and a booklet on tying knots that can occupy even the younger ones for some time. It usually helps if an older kid or adult is involved.
Have you considered books on tape/cd/mp3? It doesn't help much when played to the room.. but giving the book with it read aloud on an mp3 to a child will keep them occupied for some time.. and they can follow along with the reading and that helps their own reading skills too.
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Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
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Aagot
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| Posted: July 25 2011 at 7:42pm | IP Logged
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This may be a little far fetched but... Do you have garage or basement room for an inflatible bounce house? I know they come in 8x8 ft.size. I have been dreaming of it for my kids but the garage is too stuffed! They can also be expensive but I bet you could find a good deal and peace is worth the cost.
Also, when did you end up back in Sitka, how did I miss that? Weren't you just in sunny NM?
Praying for more sunny days for you
Aagot
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Erin
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| Posted: July 25 2011 at 8:01pm | IP Logged
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I also missed Sitka! I thought you might be but wasn't sure.
What about cards to play patience.
K'nex.
Kapla
Beading (for your girl in particular)
Knitting
and some toy threads with more ideas, here, here, and here.
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Erin
Faith Filled Days
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lapazfarm
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| Posted: July 25 2011 at 8:04pm | IP Logged
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A bounce house would be great, but sadly no garage or any other room for it.
We came back to Sitka after only 4 months in NM. Long story, but we realized we never should have left and got back here as quickly as we could.
Jodie, I will have to give the candles and cinnamon a try. I'll try anything to soothe the savage beasts around here!
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Theresa
us-schooling in beautiful Fairbanks, Alaska.
LaPaz Home Learning
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lapazfarm
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Thanks, Erin, I'll take a look at those old threads!
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Theresa
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SeaStar
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| Posted: July 25 2011 at 8:16pm | IP Logged
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My kids still love a big plastic tub filled with pinto beans... throw in some toob animals or plastic dinosaurs, and they are good for quiet time.
I also keep a "construction box" filled with interesting boxes, pipe cleaners, plastic lids, worn-out cds, egg cartons, etc. It is there for anyone who wants to construct something, and it sees regular use.
Ordinary building blocks are big here.
I also have a lego challenge jar- a jar with slips of paper in it for lego building challenges. Draw a slip of paper and see what you'll be making...
The current issue of Family Fun Magazine has a nice article about a mom who has a "summer jar". She has a slip of paper in it for each day of summer vacation. Each day they pick a slip to see what they'll do... including things like a craft project for the day or a recipe to make.
Many good books, including the Redwall series, have cookbooks to go along with them. Might be fun to read a chapter from a book and then make a recipe in the same day. That is labor-intensive for you, but sometimes kids are more likely to play quietly alone if they've had a good dose of attention doing something fun with mom.
I have been known to tape a huge, long length of paper to the floor or wall and set out the washable markers by it.  Then it gets really quiet when they find it.
My kids like to play beanie baby hide and seek.... one hides a group of beanie babies in a room, and then the other has to find them all. Then they switch.
Lastly, a therapeutic bath is always a favorite thing to do here. When everyone is bored and cranky, an hour playing with plastic animals and old muffin tins in the tub works wonders.
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Melinda, mom to ds ('02) and dd ('04)
SQUILT Music Appreciation
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SeaStar
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| Posted: July 25 2011 at 8:21pm | IP Logged
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oh- and our new favorite... going into the dark closets or bathroom with flashlights. My kids will stay in there for half an hour with their flashlights, longer if I give them a prism to take in with them.
Washable markers or dry erase markers work well on windows and clean up easily. Somehow it is sometimes more fun to draw on glass windows or doors.
Looking at old photo albums is also fun.
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Melinda, mom to ds ('02) and dd ('04)
SQUILT Music Appreciation
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Mary K
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Constructing using pipe cleaners and various lengths of
drinking straws. I plan on using these ideas for our rainy, snowy and babymoon (12/29) days.
God bless,
Mary-NY
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JodieLyn
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SeaStar wrote:
| My kids like to play beanie baby hide and seek.... one hides a group of beanie babies in a room, and then the other has to find them all. Then they switch. |
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Wow.. I didn't know other kids did this? except mine do this with Webkinz 
Sometimes they hide a little TOO well.. like the time Ty the frog got buried in the sandbox .. and found 8 months later after I'd replaced with a frog off ebay (you can get them pretty cheap without the code for online play).
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Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
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cathhomeschool
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Mine love Turbo twist. I have no idea why on earth it's so expensive now. We bought ours for next to nothing! But maybe there's something similar out there that is computerized, educational and still fun?
What about detailed Dover coloring books or their stained glass window coloring books? Mine loved those for a while. If they color each side of the "stained glass" in a different color crayon it gives a neater effect and takes twice as long to finish. 
Perler beads keep mine entertained for hours somtimes. They have big beads for small hands too. Lego Mosaics is another toy along the same lines that my kids like.
Chalkboard? Mini dry-erase board (That's my 10yo's latest fascination)? My older two loved putting stickers on a sheet of notebook paper and then coloring in the background and details of the "scene."
Maze books? (Mine younger two loved Kumon maze books but would use their fingers instead of pencil so that they could reuse each page over and over again after they'd forgotten the way.) Puzzles? Lite Brite?
No room for a bounce house but what about one of those little trampolines? Last Thanksgiving I watched my niece get on one of those over and over. She loved it.
Sorry about the weather situation. My boys and I are trying to brainstorm for you!
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Janette (4 boys - 22, 21, 15, 14)
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Kathryn
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My bigger kids used the glue gun the other day and created all sorts of crazy little figures and and sticks w/ beads from misc. art pcs. For example, tongue depresser sticks w/ beads up and down and a flower up top (looked like a book mark). My son took these googly eyes from the little ones area, made a pom pom body, beads for hands and feet, added the eye and created a person. They did this for prob. at least an hour! If you didn't want to do glue gun you could still use regular glue or glue stick but the glue gun really does make things stay!
Do they have access to a small camera that has video taping capabilities? Mine work together to create their own "show" from talking about the weather to mimicking the cooking shows we watch etc. Speaking of cooking...how about trying some new recipes? Making meatballs, rolling out some dough, making their own pizzas? Hands-on stuff.
Good luck...it is blazing hot here in TX and it does seem that mine still are playing waaay too many electronics lately.
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SeaStar
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Those little capsules at the dollar store that grow into little sponge animals and shapes are also fun.... wet in the bath tub, or dry they can be used as felt board figures. They stick pretty well.
You can easily make felt boards for everyone by using double sided tape to attach white felt to a clip board. Then the felt pieces can be put in a plastic bag and clipped to the board when not in use.
I have also made felt sets by gluing pictures from magazines onto cardstock and then mounting them on felt. They don't last forever, but they can be fun.
Also- paper dolls. There are so many to download for free on the internet... just about any book or cartoon character. Then you can make your own cardboard houses for them to live in. Check out Rolyco for fun papers also... house patterns like tile, brick, stone, carpet, etc.
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Melinda, mom to ds ('02) and dd ('04)
SQUILT Music Appreciation
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Becky Parker
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| Posted: July 26 2011 at 8:17am | IP Logged
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This is a great thread! Even though it is hot here, my kids have wanted to be inside where it's cooler and they are getting bored.
One thing they are doing this morning is setting up treasure hunts for each other. They have to make up clues, which might be hard for the younger ones, but picture clues would work. My dd, 12, is sort of leading the pack so I don't know if it would be too difficult for a 9yo old or not, but they've been at it for a couple of hours already and they're still going strong.
ETA - oops, just re-read to see you wanted independent activites. On the positive side, my kids aren't bickering while they do this, which is refreshing!
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Becky Parker
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One thing I did a couple of years ago was to make up a board game (you could call it the "bored" game ). I just made a little trail of squares on a piece of poster board and wrote a different activity in each one. The things listed above would all work. Then each child used something as a "guy" (an army guy, a lego, a little car, etc.) and took turns rolling the dice. Whatever they landed on was the activity they had to do for 15 min. Some of the things were to be done alone - "read in your room" and others were together like board games, jigsaw puzzels, etc. You could make them all independent activities though. When the timer dinged they would all run back to the game board to roll again. I didn't buy anything new but putting their old stuff into a game format made everything sort of new and exciting for them. They still ask for this sometimes but the old game board is long gone. I guess I'll have to make up a new one ... or maybe have them do it!
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Becky
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lapazfarm
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| Posted: July 26 2011 at 1:37pm | IP Logged
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Great ideas, ladies! It's another rainy day, so I'm going to get a few of these rolling!
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Theresa
us-schooling in beautiful Fairbanks, Alaska.
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KackyK
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This thread is definitely a fave!
Marshmallow building with toothpicks
Wikki Stix
get those tiny stickers and have them outline something with them, like large letters or numbers
Discovery toys' Think It Through Tiles - I didn't give a link because you can just google DT, then put in your zip for your local rep. I have had this set and all the books for forever and all ages use them. They are portable and wonderful for review, really worth the $$
tracing paper, my kids think this stuff is magic
All that's coming to mind right now 
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Mary's daughter
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Bubber! So much fun! It is a dry modeling compound that is not sticky, messy like play-doh. My kids love it. I find it fascinating.
Timberdoodle sells it.
Stephanie
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cathhomeschool
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Becky Parker wrote:
| One thing I did a couple of years ago was to make up a board game (you could call it the "bored" game ). I just made a little trail of squares on a piece of poster board and wrote a different activity in each one. |
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I totally forgot that my kids go through phases of making their own board games with poster board and markers. They make their own comic strips this way too (or on blank paper). Another thing they love to do is get their favorite comic books or video game cases and trace the characters onto white paper. We either use thinner paper or sometimes they can shine a flashlight or lamp onto the paper to see through. If they're tracing out of a book the can sometimes hold that page up to a window (which sometimes requires help) to trace.
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Janette (4 boys - 22, 21, 15, 14)
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SeaStar
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Parchment paper in the baking aisle is great for tracing.
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Melinda, mom to ds ('02) and dd ('04)
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4Real Forums : Living Learning
Topic: rainy day sanity savers
