Ideas for distracting activities for sick bored kids..?

[Sarah Dickinson]

The title says it all really. Husband is snowed under with work and can't help much, and the rest of us have horrible colds- me and two boys; 2 and 4.

The 2yo has a high temperature and is completely loopy with it: one minute manic, next minute crying, bored and with the attention span of a gnat.

The 4yo isn't so bad but crabby and prone to short attention span and hitting his brother.

We're all trying to be kind to each other but it isn't easy and I could use some inspiration to get us through the day. What I'd really like is for us all to slump in front of the telly all day but they keep wanting to do big complicated messy things, which I really don't have the energy to clear up- especially when their short attention spans mean that they're entertained for such a short time for such a lot of effort. Sorry - not articulate!

So... Books and telly not popular, boys bored and crabby, me tired and crabby...

Wish I'd been limiting sweets and telly so they'd binge now :) (joke)

all ideas welcome!

Sarah

[Sandra Dodd]

Tents! Make tents out of sheets and tables and chairs. Put pilllows and blankets in them. Maybe they'll fall asleep in one of those.

http://sandradodd.com/youngchildren
photos and ideas and other suggestions, too

[Sarah Dickinson]

I shall be making tents tomorrow I think, I enjoyed your list, loads of great ideas.

In the end today we:
- tied string to things to make big spiders webs across the room
- hole-punched stuff
- printed out diggers diggers and dinosaurs to colour in
- played games on the Internet- cbeebies, world of goo, physicsgames.net etc also a site their dad found where you can drag&drop images to make your own comics
- read stories
- watched telly a bit
- took photos of each other with the camera and looked at them
- hit metal bowls with spoons (NOT ideal for headache!)
- the above, plus experimenting with winding each other up led to a sudden visit to the pet shop to see the fish

damn those creative unschooled children :) can't keep them down!

sarah

Sandra Dodd said:

Tents! Make tents out of sheets and tables and chairs. Put pilllows and blankets in them. Maybe they'll fall asleep in one of those. http://sandradodd.com/youngchildren
photos and ideas and other suggestions, too

[Sarah Dickinson]

I read this out to the boys because they were wondering what I was doing (sneaky iphone while they watched telly) and they reminded me that we also:
- played 'tut tut it looks like rain'
- wrote a story
- pretended to be caterpillars (in pillow cases on the bed)
- 'and Charlie was an idiot'