Feeling bored is a usual part of children’s behavior. Even having extraordinary toys, engaging activities, they can be unhappy. Kids won’t be interested in everything.
Boredom is typical of children who have unstructured activities and days with no schedule. But these feelings can be useful. It provides kids with an opportunity to look for unusual methods for staying entertained and overcoming this period.
By doing different activities, the child reveals his creative skills, implements ideas, and practices problem-solving. Playing with adults contributes to the expansion of a child’s vocabulary, kids learn to better express thoughts, feelings, and needs. Through play, children try to communicate, share their things and be generous, taking into account other people’s feelings.
We will show you magic pills — fun things to do with little kids! Keep reading if you want to find out about age, special influence and reasons to spend one more day with your baby!
Why is spending time with children important?
How does your child know about your love? One of the biggest expressions is giving them your attention and care.
Kids were born weak and defenseless, babies have an instinct to demand most of our attention. Without care and support, babies cannot even survive. But if all parents satisfy the physical needs of children, they often do not have enough time or energy for emotional education.
It is vital to feed, dress and put your child in bed. But playing games, talking about life, and making common interests are also important. It requires time, desire, and concentration. There are no excuses like you’re busy or tired. Children grow, communicate and develop only with your help. It is not a secret that your child is your responsibility. His future behavior and surroundings partly depend on you, don’t forget about your powerful influence!
You need to take a break from your affairs and play with a baby for five reasons.
- Playing together deepens your relationship, helps you find a common interest, teaches you to negotiate.
- A child who grows up in a friendly environment is sure you are always open and feels safe.
- Closer communication with your child will make it easier to talk with them as a teenager.
- Warm and sincere relationships will turn education and upbringing into a pleasure.
- While a child is small, do not miss this golden time doing your work, now they need your communication and love.
There is no need for a lot of time and effort to cheer up a child. At the same time, it is not necessary to break your schedule and leave your work on purpose. Try to do everything together, have fun doing even routine things. Common actions create the best memories. So, it’s high time to plan things to do with your kids today!
Rules of common leisure
It is important to consider the psychological aspects of having time with kids. How to follow a child’s play properly?
- You do not need to interrupt his activities to do something you wanted. When you do things together and the child doesn’t keep your rules, do not stop and offer your options for the game, even if you don’t like something. You can only suggest an idea if they ask for it. But even in this case, it is better to ask open-ended questions: “What do you think?”, “What do you propose?”, “What to do next?”.
Your child becomes a leader and shows his creative skills. They learn to manage events in their lives. You can follow what they say, giving your advice or sharing your opinion. For a while, you change roles. It will help to avoid misunderstandings in the future.
When your baby feels happy with his activity, you can sincerely support them. The child intuitively chooses games that will help them get rid of fear, anger, offense. Your task is not to prevent them from doing this but to keep this condition.
- During the play, you should give positive feedback to your child. Don’t praise things with a, “well done”, but consider detailed feedback on how great they do something: “What a great idea you came up with!”, “How quickly you do it! I don’t know how!”, “What an imagination!”
There are many positive effects of different games. Soon you will notice conflicts have disappeared or you are easier to resolve, there is more trust between each other, there will be more warmth, intimacy in relationships, a desire to be together.
When a child receives an opportunity to react to his negative experience, they will become calmer in ordinary life. Aggressiveness, anxiety, and hatred will go away. The child will also have a sense of self-worth and self-respect.
You can reach all of this by playing with a child for three hours a week.
Routine as leisure — choose a proper activity
Parents are used to looking for help in technology. It doesn’t depend on age, every child can be easily attracted by devices. However, everybody knows sitting at the computer all day is a bad idea. Of course, engaging pictures, games, educational apps are entertaining and interesting. But you have a risk of hurting eyes and depriving a little boy or girl of physical activity.
Therefore, you need to find some time for physical activities and leisures that require concentration. You don’t have to go somewhere, there are many fun things to do with kids in your house.
It is easier for adults to find something to do at home. Parents usually don’t consider the idea that lots of routine activities can be done with kids. Think about the age of your baby and choose the proper tasks you can do together.
- Make a list of household chores when a child can help you.
- Find all board games that you have and you will make playing more educational
- Think of outdoor games and sports which are appropriate to do at home
- Look for simple recipes for “yummy” dinner and cook it with children
- Consider cleaning as an interesting game and share this pleasure with kids.
Stuff to do with kids who are 2-3 years old
In the second or third year of life, your baby feels many physical changes. Children become more curious and active. This is an age when independence and a sense of his own interest and responsibility are vital.
During this period, a baby has highly developed cognitive abilities, they seek contact with the world around them and gain some mental skills.
During this period, baby should be engaged in following activities:
- Learn and understand objects around
- Practice speaking, memorize new words
- Count and distinguish figures
- Do sports of different kinds
- Improve social basis, learn about themselves, interact with the surrounding environment.
- Creative thinking development.
Several games a day on different topics are enough for the development of a mind-body system of a baby.
The main rule of best things to do with kids who are 2-3 y.o. is to dive deeply into activity. It is important not to overdo classes, so as not to discourage children from doing something.
Indeed, at two or three years of age, a baby is not able to keep his attention on one thing for a long time. It is also good that games are various and not the same from day to day. Do not be afraid to show imagination, because by learning something unique with the baby, parents get the best experience!
4-5 y.o kid fun things to do
Parents of a child of primary preschool age are most concerned about sleep, toys, walking, and the good mood of the baby. Parents of a 4-5-year-old preschooler understand that school time is coming and they need to do something.
At this age, you notice important mental processes, skills, and knowledge. There will be no success without proper help and good leisure. All activities should be focused on memory,
Imagination, thinking, speaking, gaining knowledge about the environment. What are fun things to do with children at the age of 5–6 years?
- Memorizing and telling short poems with expression is excellent memory training and an opportunity to develop artistic talent.
- Singing songs is a wonderful activity that develops memory, music feeling, and the ability to reproduce what you hear.
- Listening to fairy tales provides many fascinating images in a child’s head. And their further replay will bring a lot of pleasure not only to children but also to adults. Choose roles and play!
- Labyrinth is a great way to boost thinking. Ask a child to go through the maze and find an exit with a pencil.
- Do simple experiments together. The easiest way is to freeze water in a glass and then melt ice. Such experiments will deepen knowledge about the world around us.
- Draw friends! Ask your child to draw the tallest and shortest friend, then a friend who is taller than the shortest but shorter than the tallest. Then mark their names together.
Use our ideas in practice!
There are no boring weekends, but there is a total lack of ideas of what to do with a child. And if games for children are nowadays associated with spending time on devices, it’s time to think and be creative. Well, Little Scholars experts will tell you how interesting it is to organize a weekend with children!
Outdoors
Feeding butterflies
Maybe you decided to go on holiday outside the city. But what to do? Of course, you can make a butterfly feeder! Kids love to watch these beautiful insects. Choose a suitable place and put a colorful plate of sugar syrup from the tree. Perhaps beauties will come to visit for such a generous treat. We promise you will enjoy this kind of leisure!
Coloring stones
Children love to do something with paints, just drawing on paper quickly gets boring. Find some flat stones and paint them with gouache. You can illustrate houses or dolls and use them in games. It will be a fascinating experience for children and parents.
Fire up and have fun
All kids love fire especially because it feels like something forbidden and dangerous. Little ones can just watch how pieces of wood are gradually lost in flames. And older kids can join you in doing a serious matter — cooking on fire!
City life
Barbecue in park
Take a blanket, chairs, some light snacks, and go to the nearest park or forest park. You can just lie down, looking at the blue sky, gather a bouquet of herbs, and blow bubbles to the baby’s delight.
Walk around city
Go to the historical part of the city. Spend half an hour in the morning preparing. Consider what you can tell your child about interesting places? As a rule, in each city, there are places that have their own special history. At the end of the walk, go to a cozy cafe and make your child even happier with ice cream.
Museum visit
Children should be used to artworks from an early age to expand their areas of interest. Now there are a lot of modern museums, where information is presented in an interesting and unusual way.
Playing with a kite
Children of all ages, and adults too, always watch the flight of kites with interest. This activity is easy to organize, but children’s joy and delight are guaranteed. If there is a tailwind, of course.
At home
When the weather is bad or you have no energy to get out somewhere, then you need to find a proper game or task in-house.
Do sports
It’s another piece of advice about physical activity which is so important for any age. Home is a safe and comfortable place to start a family training routine. Teach your child how to do some exercises and show how useful it is. Don’t do it tiring! Just have fun and relax together.
Arrange space
Every day is a good time to do the cleaning. You can start with your wardrobe, it can be really funny to do it with kids. If a child wants to try on something from your old wardrobe, let them do it. At the same time, it will be possible to get rid of old things in a playful way.
Photos can help
If a child has dressed in your things, you can take pictures of them as memories. This is usually a very fun process that all children enjoy. You can even make a video and then watch it with the whole family. Such daily moments look very cozy.
Make dough sculptures
Children are usually interested in what their mother is cooking in the kitchen. Mix flour with a pinch of salt and water, knead the dough and give it to the little creator. Let them make something out of the dough. The finished sculpture can be baked in an oven and painted.
Just relax and talk!
No matter where you are, discussions and small talks are always appropriate. Children feel more engaged when parents talk with them in the same way as they communicate with friends or each other. Sometimes you just want to spend time with a baby and do nothing at this time. Lie down next to them, let the baby talk about his life, dreams, and desires. Such moments of close relationship are very important for the connection between parents and children.
Many parents do not realize that playing with a child according to certain rules is a vital aspect of upbringing. It can improve not only a close loving relationship but the mental and physical condition of a child. Now you have many ideas about what to do with your kids when you have free time. You understand how important it is to catch moments of your child’s life. Talk from early childhood, find common interests, share feelings and break some rules together! You will create the greatest memories and your upbringing will be a real pleasure!
