Spring 2003
Children live to play. . .
But it doesn’t take a trip to Toys ‘R’ Us, to have a great time with your kids at home. Creating new play venues for your children is not only fun for the whole family, but can be educational as well. Here are some great games suggested by the book 365 Days of Creative Play. You can share them with your children, and spend some wonderful quality time you will all enjoy.

TRAVEL TO FARAWAY PLACES – A wonderful educational game, but the kids won’t know that. They’ll just think it’s fun.

Give each child the name of a place. If your children are older, give them another country. If they are still quite young, perhaps the name of another state or city. Tell them just a little about the place each has been given, but not too much. Give them some old magazines, paper, pencils, crayons, whatever comes to mind. Have them draw or cut out and lay out on a table or the floor a path, telling 1) how they plan to get to the location, 2) what they will wear for travel, 3) what they will do when they arrive, and 4) a treasure they will find once there. Take a lemonade break during this activity – all of you sit down together and have them begin describing what they have done so far. Make it fun! The talk gives them the chance to ask questions and get excited about their ‘trip’. Keep this game fairly short so as not to have the children lose interest. Once the kids have finished, let each lay out and present their special place. Encourage their imagination to run wild. You will be amazed at how your kids have been entertained and now YOU are being entertained. Once finished with the game, have the children put all their memorabilia together in a stack. Store all of this in a folder, envelope, binder, etc. and label it with the name of the place. Put it away for a rainy day when you and your child can look through it and talk about it together or use it for bedtime stories.

THE TENT – What parent hasn’t built some sort of tent for their children? They even make these things commercially to fit on top of a child’s bed. I have it on personal authority from my son, that my tents were always better.

Using old sheets, blankets, quilts, towels, curtains, etc., clothes pins and furniture – build an elaborate tent for your children in their rooms or, better yet, in the living room or den. Move dining chairs into place and drape the sheets and other items across them using clothes pins to help hold securely. Use existing heavy furniture to hold one side of the sheet or serve as the ‘back’ of the tent. Use towels to make flaps for the doors, partition rooms off using other sheets and blankets. Fold up blankets or quilts to make ‘beds’ and throw a few pillows in there. Plan to leave this tent castle in place for a couple of days or a weekend. (If the indoor family pet just happens to be missing while this tent is in place, you can bet this is right where they’ll be.) Allow the kids to take naps, play and eat inside the tent. Position the flaps so they can still watch TV and enjoy their snack inside. Kids love their own special place and they will give you suggestions when you’re making the tent. Incorporate their suggestions. Pretty soon, they will be asking permission to build their own tent palace!

A SPECIAL TENT – A variation on the theme above – when I was a little girl, I used to love to watch the popular TV show ‘I Dream of Jeannie’. I used to dream of having my own Jeannie bottle just like the one Barbara Eden had. I would arrange my surroundings inside a sheet tent to match those of Jeannie’s bottle. I made a circle of pillows on top of a blanket on the floor inside the tent and gathered up costume jewelry and just placed it around the tent floor. Among the comfort of my pillows and the sparkle of my ‘jewels’, I would have a cup of ‘tea’, lounge to my heart’s content and even invite my sister into my bottle once in awhile. This idea might just appeal to your daughter too. ‘I Dream of Jeannie’ is enjoying quite a come back on cable channels. Encourage your daughter to watch then help her build her own bottle.

For more great play tips visit http://genaeverhart.homestead.com. Gena is the co-author of 365 Days of Creative Play. It is a wonderful resource.


Laundry Day Can be Fun … Even for Kids!

Ever since having kids Laundry seems to always be an issue. Washing and drying it is never a problem…it’s folding and putting it away I always seem to have an issue with. Then one day the light bulb turned on. My kids (6 and 4 at the time) always want to help around the house but it seems that they create more chaos than help. However I thought to myself if I can engage them in a way that’s helpful it could solve a lot of problems.

I started to think of a kindergarten class and how it is set up. Everything has a place which is clearly marked by a picture of the item. I got some cloths catalogs and had the kids pick and cut out pictures of sweaters, pants, shirts etc. We then went up to their rooms and decided which drawers they wanted everything to go in and taped the corresponding picture to that drawer. They loved doing this and it gave them a real sense of control to be able to choose where they would put their things.

Now once the laundry is done, I divide their cloths and off they go to their rooms to put their things away. It may not be the neatest way to do things but it gets the job done and they are delighted to be able to help out.

If you have any tips or things that work for you, submit them to newsletter@scalliwags.com. If we print your tip you will win a free pass into Scalliwags.