Topic awaiting preservation: Those mini-recreational things for kids

I'm a kid at heart. Still do a lot of those silly little kid things. Plus I'm already in the company of kids all day long. Sometimes I even have more than a few kids in my care. This weekend I'm going to have all 3 heathens all to myself while the rest of the adults go out-of-state. Exciting, yet terrifying.

Keeping kids a little busy with little fuss, and maybe getting them to learn something. Or some manual dexterity exercise.

- Learn some origami. Playing with toys is cool, but playing with toys that you make yourself is even cooler. No need to get fancy or complicated - even a small variety of paper airplanes is good. One of the best forms of origami for kids is the puppet variety. If you happen to have a writing utensil handy, all the better to decorate.

--- A business card can make a good paper puppet. All you have to do is "pinch" it with a finger in the middle to form a crease. Simple, effective, and a business card usually isn't too hard to find.

- Learn a sleight-of-hand trick or two. Takes a lot of practice, but the oh-ah factor is worth it. Again, no need to go all-out. A simple french-drop will keep the kids fascinated.

- Bubbles! Sometimes, when adults throw certain types of parties, the little novelty bubble things are made available. Don't be shy and steal a few (get thrown away anyways). If I am going to be some place with lots of kids running rampant, I always take at least two of these things.

- String scuplture is also good. Around 6 feet for yourself and 4 feet for them. I highly recommend learning how to play Cats in the Cradle.

(Along the string idea, but for adults, I've been learning knots. A few decent sized pieces at a party and it's mini-workshop for the closet BDSM crowd. Good link: The Most Useful Rope Knots For The Average Person To Know)

- Hand jive and songs. Take the time to learn whatever hand jive and songs are popular in your area. Miss Suzy had a Tugboat with basic cross-splapping was popular when I was kid. The only downside is that this is usually a girl thing. Watch out for variations on the songs.

Now, I deal mostly with kids under 10 years old. So I try to keep things simplier. With few exceptions, also try for things that can be done on-the-fly with things on hand because you can't always plan ahead. For example, paper placemats at a restuarant can be folded into some cool things. At good restaurants, crayons are usually available for decorating - more fun than just plain colouring the placemats and keeps them out from underneath the table.

You should see some of the looks that I get from adults when I pull one of my keep-them-busy-and-under-control tricks. Priceless.

Word of caution: if you decide to deal with kids that you don't know, take extra care.

Last spring we went to Girlie #1's school for a show and open house afterwards. Knowing full well the situation, I took two novelty bubble blowers. Sure enough, after the show, a small group of kids were causing way too much chaos and the parents were being useless. Rather than give the bubble blowers directly to the kids, I gave them to the parents to give to the kids. I'm sure you can figure out why.

Actually talking about this stuff has made me realize just how much I am like both of my parents. Both work(ed) with kids doing very similiar stuff.

If there is anything I enjoy, it's using a sense of fascination to keep kids busy.
So much better to open doors instead of closing them.

If you have more tips-n-tricks, I'm all ears.

edit:

- Sign language is good. Learn a few words that a kid would use. In my experience, most kids enjoy the signs for animals. The signs for some animals are rather animated and just plain fun to do.

(Edited by warjournal on 11-09-2004 16:19)

they like farts and burps

Heh. Burping used to be a big one for us when I was a kid.
"Come here. I want to tell you a secret," then let it rip right in their ear.

As far as farting goes, I've known quite a few people that enjoy a good 'barking spider'.
It's all fun and games until someone gets his ass hairs burned off. But it sure is funny amoung a group of drunk friends.

Kind of funny that the whole rope and knot thing got started with the kids. We were at a company BBQ and there was 3-legged race. The bossman was going to throw away all of that lovely rope, so I stole it. When I gave it to the heathens, they had a blast with it for many weeks. They would take turns arresting each other (tying up) and hauling off to jail. They even used to make some rather impressive tents with some blankets.

The old "make a paper airplane and then see how far it will go" trick is good. Normally eats a few hours, especially when they can go outside and try.

The huge Cardboard box. Nothing is better than a huge cardboard box, to make a fort, a sub, an airplane, etc out of! Just be sure the kids aren't cutting off their fingers!! Best to help them with any cutting.

If outside is available, kick-the-can is a great one, and so is Rag-Tag!! Used to love playing those in my youth!!

Did I every say that you rock, warjournal? Raising kids is an important task, and in our societies it is all to often overlooked, especially when a man is doing the raising. You have my deepest respect. I think you demonstrate some of the best qualities in men.

(Edited by WebShaman on 11-09-2004 17:08)

Some under 10 huh? Well there'll probably be one two them still small enough to be chimney sweeps.. up & down the inside easily reaching the bricks..

What no water to haul, wood to chop, stalls to muck?? Wait a minute!!! I distinctly heard you say the other day the house needed painting. No time like the present!


Very cool Warj... sounds like a very nice place to be. More are needed. =)

Dont forget the paper and crayons! Those entertained me for hours.

Oh, and how about some string and tin cans? Those make fun basic telephones.

There are also a ton of fun things you can do with popsicle sticks, cardboard, glue, and string.

I even used to have the directions to make a shoebox rubber band banjo.

(Edited by Wolfen on 11-09-2004 23:56)

lots of good ieads there!

one of the best investments i've ever made was in legos. I started buying them when my son was 4 or so and I'm still buying them. they're heaps of fun and keep kids and adults entertained quite nicely.

i second the box thing. give kids a cardboard box and markers and they can make castles, houses, forts, tunnels etc.

speaking of forts, we always had fun taking the diningroom chairs into the livingroom and having the backs face each other and throwing blankets over the top to make a fort. you can crawl through them, and if you have the right kind of chairs, you can crawl under the chairs. throw some flashlights and pillows in and you're good to go.

Ah, the good ol' days of the good ol' cardboard box. When my mother was into dumpster diving, she brought a few home and we made tanks. Man, we ran those things into the ground. Last year we had a few for the kids, but not enough room to protect them from the rain. That really sucked.

String and cans! I've got several really big coffee cans for this, but I can't find any string that works well. I've got several miles of speaker wire so I might try that. Actually, we don't use the phone lines in our house, so I might try some phreaking and they can use the regular handsets that we don't use.

We definitely do the tent thing. We have an old one that we put in the living room on occassion. Our daybed is broke and on it's side, which makes for a good blanket tent. Tried with chairs, but couldn't get the proper weighting for the monsters.

Legos suck for our kids. Woman bought a big ol' thing of Legos and they are all over the place. Fun to play with, but a bitch to keep track of with the heathens. Kind of sucks because I have still have some Erector set stuff that I would like to bust out one of these days.

Basically the same thing with the crayons - broken and all over the place. Although, we got one of those Crayola Crayon Makers and it's fantabulous. To borrow from Izzay, WJ gives it three thumbs up.

Time to squish some kids.
Tomorrow is going to be worse.
Looking forward to it. Seriously.

wj: Also try with tomatoe soup cans or fruit cans. Those work really well.

The cherubs I know and knew in the past loved Thumb Wrestling. It's a great little game with no props needed, if you don't know how to play it warJ I'll explain later (gotta dash now). Also with the string and cans theme you can make mini stilts

I have two problems with thumb wresting:
1. Big hands
2. Hard time letting kids win

One of the first rules is to let kids win, but I just can't do that when it comes to thumb wresting. I'm bad like that.

Weekend came and went and I wasn't too happy about it. The first rule around here is to leave the laundry alone. Clean or dirty - don't touch the laundry! I made them sit down on the couch more than once for this. Then they kept giving me lip about it and I was *very* close to spanking. Monsters! I hate to say it, but they should know better than to f* with me like that.

As far as arts-n-crafts stuff goes, we made a dollhouse out of smaller cardboard boxes. I even let them have my secret stash of coloured construction paper. Daddy/Uncle WJ has a lot of cool stuff stashed away. Heh.

To relax after the ordeal, I cleaned my keyboard and waxed up my desk a bit.

Damn. I'm starting to get pissed all over again just thinking about it. And Woman got me going a few times about various related things.

Gonna listen to some angry music and pump some iron.
Sounds good.

quote:

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One of the first rules is to let kids win, but I just can't do that when it comes to thumb wresting. I'm bad like that.

---

What is it about thumb wrestiling?!?! I'm the very same way. I think it may just be physically hard to let them win cuz they suck at it so bad. Do make me giggle tho.

Next time I'm over I'm so gonna touch your laundry

lots of great ideas here. i have two suggestions..

with crayons. buy a wooden bowl (new or used from the thrift store) ~12 inches across at the top. put all the crayons in there. whole or broken. it gives the children a larger target to put them away in..

for legos. give them a corner that gets no traffic where they can set up and leave pieces around without being underfoot. their creations will be on display and if they choose to rebuild? they have to collect any scattered pieces.