During vacations, weekends, evenings, or rainy days, we sometimes look for a long time for ways to occupy the children. Stop racking your brains; we’ve got 12 entertaining and clever activities for you to try and none of them require the use of a screen.
Sometimes, we have to admit it: figuring out how to keep the kids busy in a smart way is a pain in the ass. So we do the same thing over and over again (“Here, why don’t you draw me a nice picture?”; “Why don’t you read a story?”) In short, we go around in circles, and for lack of original ideas, we often end up putting them in front of a television or a tablet.
So, to allow your little ones to expend themselves while being creative, it is possible to do activities without screens that only require energy (sometimes a lot of energy). You’ll be able to provide your children with something to do, play with, experiment with, and discover… and get their imaginations going.These games can be enjoyed at home, either alone or with family. Here is our small selection of 10 activities (with a few bonuses!) to make your free time a success:
1. Make an imaginary object
To stimulate your children’s creativity, imagination, and fine motor skills, you can challenge them! For this activity, you have to make an object using elements found at home. Be careful; you will then have to defend the usefulness of your creation in front of an impartial jury, i.e., the parents.
2. Drawing collectively
What if you worked in teams? Instead of drawing on your own, you can put your creative minds together to create a work of art that reflects you. Whether it’s with pencils, paint, or puffy paint,
3. Have a face contest
Who will be the ugliest? To relax as much as possible, we suggest you have a face contest. To spice up the rules, the grimace can be made in the form of a riddle, so you will have to guess the person, animal, or object you are imitating.
4 The shadow game
This is a fun activity! To stimulate your children’s creativity, we suggest you play with shadows. To do this, place a frieze of figures on a sheet of paper on the floor or a table. In the house or in the garden, you can set up wherever you like. Then you can play with the different lights, whether natural or artificial, to discover beautiful shadows. Using a pencil or felt-tip pens, draw the outlines, colour if you feel like it, and that’s it!
5 Fetching objects in the house
It’s no longer possible to spend time with extracurricular activities, but our kids can still do it at home. For this game, you can expect a lot of noise, but it will allow your kids to release all their energy. The goal is to find an object in the house that corresponds to the criteria you have chosen beforehand; it could be a shoe, a bandage, or a book. You can also make it a fun activity by asking your children to look for an object starting with a specific letter, which will help them enrich their vocabulary as well as their understanding of the language.
6. Body sculpture
Balance will be the key word in this game. For this activity, you have to imitate a person, an animal, or an object, all while staying balanced. To increase the level of difficulty, you can balance on one foot or raise both arms.
7. Musical chairs
back to childhood! The goal of the game is always the same: everyone has to place a chair to form a circle, then you have to turn around until the end of the melody. Remember to leave a certain distance between the chairs to avoid tension.
8. Dressing up
How about dressing up as our favourite heroes or a creature from another world? For this activity, you will have to disguise yourself with the elements at your disposal at home: clothes, fabrics, and why not a colander or a bath towel?
