Interesting things to do on a rainy day with children
Phew! These holidays are stretching on a bit. Has the joy of having children home all day worn off for you yet? By mid-August, most mums who stay at home are running low on ideas of things to do with children that DON’T include Xboxes and PSP games and vegging in front of the TV. We’ve done:
a drawing game – each think of 10 things to draw and put them in a box, shake it and take turns to try and draw what’s on your bit of paper. A sort of home-made Pictionary.
we read ‘The Speckled Band’, a terrific, gripping and, most importantly, very short short story by Conan Doyle about Sherlock Holmes and Watson. We drew a picture of Holmes in a deerstalker and read a quick biography of Sir Arther Conan Doyle. I never knew he was a doctor – hence Holmes’ ability to infer all kinds of clues from observing things closely.
In the kitchen, while cooking various things, we froze, boiled and simmered ingredients, watching how they turned from liquid into solid and into vapour. And then, if it was possible, we ate it or drank it.
We watched Zulu and read about Rorke’s Drift in The Dangerous Book for Boys. Other films we watched included Braveheart (Scottish bid for independence) and The Boy In Striped Pyjamas (the Holocaust).
We did pop-art paintings – Nelson Mandela with a tongue piercing, Gandhi with tattoos. In dayglo colours.
I think you can pinpoint a lot of excellent stuff on TV if you have a lot of channels. The Discovery Channel feels like relaxing fun to ten-year olds but is pretty informative too. Let me know if you’ve got any favourite programmes that are fun and clever. I’m always interested.
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