Creativity is Contagious so pass it on to your Kids!

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As a lot of moth­ers know, it is not easy keep­ing lit­tle chil­dren occu­pied for long peri­ods, some­times even the big kids! Chil­dren haven’t got long atten­tion spans – it makes it dif­fi­cult for par­ents to take even a breather in-between all the fun things that chil­dren often want to do. And the thing is, the activ­i­ties for chil­dren have to be cho­sen with care because a lot of their intel­lec­tu­al growth and their men­tal health depends on what they par­tic­i­pate in dur­ing their for­ma­tive years. You want to find activ­i­ties that stim­u­late the child and exer­cise his brain. Look at these cre­ative activ­i­ties that chil­dren will love and enjoy doing:

1- Cutting and Gluing

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It might take some time for small­er chil­dren to work with scis­sors, nat­u­ral­ly under super­vi­sion, but it is an impor­tant motor skill. It helps to devel­op cre­ativ­i­ty in chil­dren, and you will soon rec­og­nize a young Picas­so in this excit­ing activ­i­ty!

Needed:

• A pair of scis­sors
• Glue
• Coloured paper with all dif­fer­ent shapes
• Draw­ing paper

Next:

Encour­age your child to cut out the shapes with coloured paper. Maybe you can start with sim­ple shapes, becom­ing more com­plex as your child gets the hang of it. Let him stick all his cutouts on the draw­ing paper to cre­ate ‘beau­ti­ful’ art­work.

2- Raised Salt Painting

That is a great favourite amongst chil­dren; it’s just so much fun and also devel­ops the child’s cre­ativ­i­ty. And if a child is dis­in­ter­est­ed in stuff, well, he will love salt paint­ing.

Needed:

• Epsom salts
• Glue
• Dif­fer­ent colours of food colour­ings
• Draw­ing paper
• Paper plates
• A pen­cil

Next:

On a paper plate, add just a few drops of food colour­ing over some Epsom salt and mix up. Repeat this process if the child wants dif­fer­ent colours. Then let your child draw his art­work and pat­tern on the draw­ing paper. Help him to apply glue on his designs, and then pour the coloured salt over the glued areas. Then let it dry.

3- Playdough Modelling

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Most chil­dren have played with play­dough in their young lives, and you will always find it in toy stores year after year – such a favourite and cheap and easy too. All you have to do is pro­vide the play­dough and leave it over to him to imag­ine great things. Soon the child will be con­jur­ing up all kinds of shapes. Play­ing with play­dough helps to stim­u­late the brain and helps the child to think about mak­ing dif­fer­ent shapes.

Needed:

• Play­dough
• Play­dough mats
• Poke-ins

Next:

Give your child some play­dough and let your child make the shapes of his choice. Assist him, and both of you have fun, mak­ing all kinds of shapes and sizes. Your child will also enjoy the poke-ins and the mats to give tex­ture to his shapes.

4- Water Balloon Painting

Water bal­loon paint­ing is a fab­u­lous way of adding new tex­tures and tech­niques for a child.

Needed:

• Some water bal­loons.
• Paper plates
• Water­colour
• Draw­ing paper/ can­vas

Next:

Fill up the bal­loons with water. You might need to help him tie the bal­loons, so the water does­n’t spill out while he is paint­ing. Dif­fer­ent amounts of water will give you dif­fer­ent sizes. Put some water­colour in the plates and let your child dip the water bal­loons in the colours he wants.

5- Elephant Toothpaste

That is one ‘game’ the kids adore. Such fun!

Needed:

• Dry yeast
• Safe­ty gog­gles
• A plas­tic bot­tle
• Liq­uid soap, prefer­ably dish soap
• Edi­ble colour
• 6% per­ox­ide
• Warm water

Next:

Help your child put on the safe­ty gog­gles. Then put the per­ox­ide into the plas­tic bot­tle, adding colour and the dish soap. Shake up the bot­tle. In anoth­er con­tain­er, take some yeast, adding warm water to it. Add the yeast mix to the bot­tle that has the per­ox­ide in and dish soap and colour. Watch your child as the colour mix­ture lath­ers up and flows out the bot­tle in all kinds of shapes and forms.

6- Making Masks

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Mak­ing masks is great fun because your child can become anoth­er per­son!  It devel­ops his /her cre­ative skills.

Needed:

• A con­struc­tion plate
• A pair of scis­sors
• Water­colours or crayons
• Glue
• A pen­cil
• Two rub­ber bands

Next:

Get your child to mark areas that need to be cut out on the con­struc­tion plate – that will be for his eyes, ears, and nose.  Help him/her to cut the plate out as per the mark­ings, and then colour in his mask in his way. Poke two holes for the least band on each side, mak­ing them into loops to go around his ears.

7- Glowing Dough

Chil­dren love stuff that glows and shines, and when it comes to play­ing dough, it is no dif­fer­ent. That might be more for the old­er child who can be with you around the stove and who is used to a bit of cook­ing. You need to be present all the time with this activ­i­ty to pre­vent acci­dents.

Needed:

• 4–5 cups of water
• 2 cups table salts
• 5 cups of flour
• 2/3rd cup of veg­etable oil
• Edi­ble colour
• 2 table­spoon of cream of tar­tar
• Glow-in-the-dark paint
• Black-light (UV/ultraviolet light)

Next:

On a stove­top and a medi­um flame, mix up all the ingre­di­ents except for the edi­ble colour and the glow-in-the-dark paint. Let this mix­ture cook until it becomes all gooey. Take off the heat and let it cool down a bit. When it’s just warm, add some food colour­ing and the glow-in-the-dark paint. Now knead the dough well. You can store it in a zip lock bag. When­ev­er your child wants to play, he can have some fun mak­ing shapes with the dough with some black-light. Don’t wor­ry — here is a no-cook recipe!

8- Ball Pit and Slide

This idea is great for the small­er kids, tons of fun. You will need to pur­chase an inflat­able plas­tic pool and fill it with coloured plas­tic balls and a kid-sized slide. Believe it; your lit­tle one will spend hours climb­ing and slid­ing down. This game makes a big splash!

9- Stained Glass Window

A very cool ‘game’ this, and kids of all ages love this. You hang up a sheet of plas­tic and then cut up squares of tis­sue paper. But look, we have includ­ed many ideas here – love­ly works of art for your lit­tle ones to cre­ate!

10- Target Golf

That looks easy enough to cre­ate but great fun. All you do is take a card­board box and cut out entry holes. Then you will allow your child to hit a golf ball in the holes. Who over scores the most will win!

11- Easy Indoor Swing and Crash Pad

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This one gives your child end­less fun and plen­ty of move­ment. What about this!

12- Pool Noodle Playhouse

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That is so much fun; one won­ders if the chil­dren ever get tired of it. If it’s swim­ming sea­son again, or when they go on sale, stock up on pool noo­dles and buy as many as you can. Because they can be the per­fect build­ing bricks to make the most awe­some play­house. Just bed sheets need to be added.

13- Indoor Climbing Space

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That is so cool. When you see the kids on this, you knew you did the right thing, and par­tic­u­lar­ly if you have kids with lots of ener­gy. It’s like an indoor gym with plen­ty of room to climb and a jun­gle gym. And a mat­tress can be built under it, so if they fall, they won’t get hurt. They’ll love it!

14- Cardboard Box Coloring

That is won­der­ful if you’ve got tod­dlers who need enter­tain­ing. Just place a lit­tle tod­dler inside a card­board box and give him some colour­ful crayons. He will do just that to his heart’s con­tent. You’re lucky; you’ll find plen­ty of oth­er excit­ing activ­i­ties on this link.

15- Kid-Made Music Instruments

Kids adore play­ing with imag­i­nary drums or gui­tars, or any­thing that imi­tates being in a band. Now they can build their own drum set and join up with the band!  

16- Scavenger Hunt

It does­n’t have to be a long list to go through – all you have to do with this game is say, “Find me some­thing that starts with the let­ter D,” for instance. Let the kids run around the house, search­ing for things that start with the let­ter “D.” They must either bring it to you or tell you what it is when they have found it. Then you can keep your kids moti­vat­ed by going through quite a few let­ters of the alpha­bet. After that, you can moti­vate them even fur­ther by let­ting them choose what they want to eat for din­ner lat­er.

17- Grow a Garden

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Give your child a real small plant to take care of. Maybe you can help them with a small herb gar­den or a gar­den of small veg­gies or flow­ers, allow­ing them to water the plant when need­ed and take care of it. They will love check­ing up on their plants and maybe when the time comes, show them how to cut the herbs off ready for a sal­ad lat­er on.

Can we tell you a secret?

As most schools know, the best way to keep chaos from reign­ing is to have a rou­tine in the home. Make a rou­tine for the kids – they are used to fol­low­ing a sched­ule. Grab a pen and paper and map out how your days will look at home. The goal is to keep your kids hap­py and enter­tained but allow­ing you to get things done as well, and stay sane!