Welcome to a themed edition of Works for Me Wednesday! This week is backwards week, where we get to ask for advice, rather than hand it out.
What we would love to know is…
What are some of your favorite fun activities to do with your kids that involve totally unplugged play?
Do you have fun making forts out of blankets? Do you go walk around downtown? Do you grab out the legos? Share your ideas for unplugged play!
When Angie isn’t telling her kids to get off the computer and go get some fresh air, she is probably sitting at the computer herself, writing at Many Little Blessings.
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{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
My daughter love, love, LOVES being barefooted in the sandbox, no matter what the weather. My son likes making things – a tent with the couch cushions and blankets, crafty paper creations, using legos, k’nex, etc. They both like crayons/markers and play-doh. AND we all like to get together in the kitchen and bake – we are baking my husband’s birthday cake tomorrow!
We only have one TV and no game station. Blocks, cars, trains… classic kids games. My boys love Axis and Allies and their friend do, too (age 9 and 10).
Something unusual we love to do is paint the sidewalk. Get cheap paintbrushes and a bucket of water and have fun! Cheap and easy and the littles never seem to tire of it.
Sometimes I’ll also fill up the kitchen sink and just let them “wash”. They love to play in the kitchen.
My boys love to play with blocks, color, ride their bikes, garden, play with homemade playdough, and my daughter loves to sew, read, ride her bike, cook, etc.
If you’ve never made playdough with your kids I highly recommend it. It’s easy to make and they love playing with it. I have the recipe on my blog. Just do a search for playdough.
Blessings,
Kim
We take a walk in our back woods to a little creek…..
We watch very little television here. Our favorite activities include going to the playground, and playing with legos, blocks, and doing lots of arts and crafts.
I try to get out a few crafty things and leave them on the table for the kids to use at their leisure. Usually this involves playdoh, some color pages, lacing cards, or the like.
We definitly spend lots of time outside working in the garden or playing catch. They also love to play all sorts of games they make up outside.
And you can never play legos too much!
For all of us to do together, we love board (& card) games.
Mine love to paint/wash with water, too. They have lately been cleaning the concrete floor with damp sponges. My 8 year old likes to draw mazes, hidden pictures, and mixed up animals. He likes for me to fold a stack of papers in half so he can make a book. They love to play in water and sand outside – and use sidewalk chalk. My 3 year old always wants to jump on the bed, chase people, and wrestle – it never gets old. My 2 year old’s favorite activity is just to give her a bunch of little things (letters, cards, clothespins, etc.) and a purse or container, and she’ll carry them around, fill it up, sort them, etc. Our favorite “day out” is going to the library downtown, walking around the riverfront, and getting lunch at Whole Foods.
My husband build a huge (15′x10′) sandbox for our boys in the backyard and they love it! We’re also big on train tracks around here – lots of imagination and story telling!
If you aren’t familiar with it yet, let me introduce you to UnplugYourKids. http://www.unplugyourkids.com/
She offers a single word theme for the week as an “Unplugged Project”. The participants take the theme in any direction they choose. We’ve ended up making water in glasses into music, creating Christmas cards, painting egg cartons into caterpillars, etc. It’s so much fun… I really need to get back to doing it regularly!
The theme for this week is “words” and the projects are “due” on Mondays. :)
Baking cookies, having a “parade” with dd’s percussion set and some fun music, art projects, making an obstacle course through our house with couch cushions, etc…
Couch cushion forts — yes! We build them almost daily.
We also love to paint — tempera, watercolors.
Of course, there's reading!
And going to the park to explore nature, especially now that it's spring.
We also visit grandparents & great-grandparents a lot — the best kind of unplugged play around!
We love to pack a picnic, read books, play board games, or go on a walk!
My kids, as of tomorrow, are both teens [sniff, sniff, waaah] When they were younger the favorites were: “Would you rather” [a car favorite] and a silly game we made up with those scoop/ball toys you get at the Dollar Store. I’d shout out silly things like “whoever catches this….has to…stay up a half hour later…” or “whoever…has to clean the kitty box” They’d laugh and run for hours for this! And, chores often got done!
My kids love to make lunch and picnic in the backyard with a board game.