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Indoor Winter Activities for Children

The warm days of summer and fall are coming quickly to an end, but your children are ready to keep on going wrecking havoc in your home with their unspent energy.  What you really need is to create a listing of ideas, things to do for your children so they can focus their energies on something else besides running in circles through out your home.

One great thing about winter is that you still have a ton of things that you and your children can do inside to keep their minds and spirits busy.  Learning is always an option, but while they might not want to do something that is educational you have to learn to make it more fun while they are learning.

Small children ages three, four and five and learn to hold a pencil, crayon or pen and make holiday cards. Christmas, New Years, Valentines, and even St Patrick’s Day cards are always welcomed from aunts, uncles, neighbors, and for grandparents.  Just a piece of paper and a colored pen will allow your child to sit for fifteen minutes where their creative juices are going to present a picture for the card. 

The learning part of this activity is the learning how to write their name, practice writing their name, or practice writing other letters of the alphabet on their card.  For example Merry Christmas Aunt Susie  - will give your child many letter to practice.  Children love to be excited about the holidays and spread their holiday cheer, use this opportunity to keep them busy fifteen minutes at a time while creating cards.

A great activity that both young and older children alike will take part in is the rearranging their rooms.  While this is going to include you in their activity, rearranging their room to how they want it to be will allow you to clean out stuff they don’t use while the room is being rearranged.

Children about ten or twelve are not going to be interested in just sitting down and writing letters any more, they want to have pen pals that actually write back.  You can start your ten to twelve year olds writing to pen pals that are their cousins, relatives in a rest home, or even relatives that live far away. 

It is sometimes difficult to find a pen pal, but once you do, finding one that is going to be trust worthy so your son or daughter can write to them weekly or so will be a great reading and writing experiment that they will enjoy.  You can find pen pal clubs on line as well at many children’s sites.

Older children fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen are often going to need additional encouragement to keep their selves busy.  They would rather sit in front of the television than have to do something that is going to be useful for their minds or bodies.  These children are old enough to paint their rooms, clean up their rooms, walk the dog around town, go through their clothes and tell you which ones don’t fit any more, and they are most likely going to be interested in decorating the house for the holidays without your help. Because these children feel a little older they want more responsibility and decorating the house for New Years or Valentines is going to be rewarding for them.

Teach your children how to sort clothes, put them in the washer and how to turn the washer on. While this is a task that you often have to over see, you will be preparing them for the future!

Have your children make supper.  Fix easy meals in the microwave or in the oven (under your supervision of course) so that they are practicing on their life skills.

Children who are any where from eight to eighteen can make cookies, cakes or breads while you are supervising the younger ones.  Practicing both for boys and girls will keep them occupied and let you take a little rest at the same time!

Getting an exercise bike and putting it in front of the television is going to keep children of all ages busy while watching television.  Small hand weights can be used while watching television as well, working arms muscles a little while in the house.