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| Simple, screen-free activities for after care
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It's a busy time when kids get home from school or child care. There are bags to repack, lunchboxes to make and dinner to prepare before another day at work.
But rather than reach for the remote to entertain the kids whilst you get organised, here are eight simple, fun activities to keep kids occupied and screen-free.
Outdoor explorers
Send kids into the garden with an empty egg box to find 12 interesting items – one for each egg hole. Turn them into mini-explorers and make it a real adventure by giving each child a backpack with a water bottle, a snack, and a magnifying glass if you have them. It's amazing to see what they come back with!
Felt collage
Pick up some felt sheets and a pair of kid-safe scissors. Kids can cut out shapes then arrange them to make collages and pictures. This is a great for siblings to do together, where the older kids can cut out shapes to help the littler ones. Shapes can be reused each time, so you can build up quite a collection!
Indoor tennis
Raining outside? Clear some space inside and set up a fun game of kid-friendly tennis, with a balloon and a couple of flyswatters.
Design your own town
Get a roll of butcher's paper and get kids started by drawing the outline of a road. From there they can design their own town by drawing houses, trees, parks and extra roads. When it's finished, they can drive their toy cars on it. You can even recruit any LEGO figurines to play in the parks or walk along the streets.
Straw necklaces
All you need is a pack of brightly coloured drinking straws, some string and a pair of kid-safe scissors. Kids can snip the straws into different lengths into a bowl and thread them onto the string to make necklaces and decorations.
Peggy alphabet
Use 26 wooden clothes pegs and write one letter from the alphabet on each peg. Then write out some flash cards made up of simple words, such as pony, mouse, pie, sun, cat, grape (remember to pick words that use one letter each!). Kids love to match the lettered pegs to the word. This activity is also great for siblings to do together, where older ones can help the littler ones.
Backyard art
Grab a piece of paper, some glue and coloured pencils and head outside. Kids can make pictures from leaves, rocks, sticks… whatever they can find.
Velcro popsicle sticks
All you need is a pack of popsicle sticks, some coloured pens, and some small sticky Velcro dots. Kids firstly colour in and decorate the sticks, and then stick a Velcro dot on each end of each stick. The sticks then can be stuck together to make all sorts of shapes and towers. Something the kids can make and play with!
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