Summertime is just around the corner now, and although that means a lot of time off for your kids, it’s likely a time that you dread just as much as you get excited about. Because, when the weather is nice, it’s very easy to keep your little ones entertained when they are not at school because you can take them to the park, to zoos, or on day trips here and there, to the beach, etc. However, when the weather is bad (and let’s face it, in the UK it’s not always as grand as we hope it will be), you are then faced with the prospect of having to entertain bored and restless kids.
Obviously, the tendency for many adults in that situation would be to just stick them in front of their devices. However, if you are trying to limit the amount of time they have with their tablets, game consoles, television, and computers, you need to think of other things to do with them. If you find yourself in that very situation and are stuck, don’t worry, as we are here to help. In the following post, we are going to look at 5 great arts and crafts activities you can do with your family during those boring days stuck indoors during the holidays.
Design and Make T-Shirts
It may be a little outside the box, but you could spend some quality time with your kids making use of a heat press machine. Although this requires a small investment, it opens a world of possibilities for you to do special arts and crafts projects. Primarily, you can use it to design and create your own t-shirts.
Try and get them involved in it, even if you are not sure about using the machine itself, they could still have a say in the designs whether they’re patterns or family-centred. If you have a relative that needs cheering up or you just want to do something nice for someone, you and your kids could each choose a person to design and make a t-shirt for.
Make Hand and Finger Puppets and Put on a Show
Why not get those creative juices flowing with your children by making sock puppets and other hand or finger puppets? Once you have all made your creations you could then put together your own puppet play. If you really want to push the boat out, you could invite friends and family and design a special stage and sets to really make the action come to life.
Painting Challenge
What kid doesn’t like to mess around with paint. The great thing about art is that it’s subjective. Therefore, one man’s disaster piece is another’s masterpiece. To get out of the house, even if it’s just into the back garden, you could hold a painting competition. Everyone gets the same equipment and access to the same paints and brushes, but you all can paint whatever you want. Either that or you could select something that you are all going to paint.
To make things even more interesting you could invite an independent adjudicator to judge the finished pieces. A grandparent, uncle or aunt would be a great choice.
Home Baking
Another thing that most children love doing is making a mess in the kitchen while trying to make the perfect cakes. You could spend some quality time doing a crafty project that’s also a tasty one – baking a delicious cake. You could even try making different types of frosting and decorations for the cake to really make it look professional (or possibly not)
Again, much like the t-shirts or even the painting, you could take the finished, baked goods to someone in the family or a friend or neighbour to brighten their day or just for judging purposes.
Make Jewellery
Do you have a plentiful supply of beads and other sparkling and fancy little things that could fit onto a piece of string? Why not spend the day with your kids creating your own jewellery. This is yet another great artistic project because it is not restrictive. You are only limited to your imagination. Keeping things simple will mean that everyone can participate and then you could even put on a fashion show at the end, displaying the fruits of your collective labour.
We could easily have spent another couple of thousand words discussing even more arts and crafts ideas for children during the holidays, however, we picked out five of our favourites. We hope you find it useful.