January Q & A: #5 Activities for Children

Question #5:

"I spend a lot of time here at home alone with the children. Because of the calling in my husband's life as deacon in the church and his gifted ways of helping people he ends up being gone a lot evenings, etc. I would love ideas for activities for my children to do that occupies their time. My 4 daughters are 14, 13, 11, & 9. Son is almost 6.  My daughters are the ones that I struggle the most with in keeping them busy and happy. Would love ideas of craft projects, games, etc for them to do. Love it when they can somewhat do it on their own as least in part."

I had asked for input on this question and was going to wait until the end of the month to post an answer but I haven't gotten any input and I don't have any other questions ready, so I'll go ahead with this one today.

At our house it's the boys who get bored quickly and the girls usually have plenty of projects they want to work on. I don't know what your girls enjoy but I let my mind run and came up with a long list of ideas.

Sewing
If you haven't taught your girls to use a sewing machine, an easy thing to learn on is sewing nine patch blocks together. My mom let us cut squares from scrap fabric she had (probably 3-4 inch square) She would make a pattern with a square of cardboard and then we would trace blocks and cut them out. Then she showed us how to sew them together. That was the first thing I ever sewed!

Drawing
If your girls like to draw, you can find lots of 'how to draw' books at the library. Anything from easy to hard. Another thing we enjoyed one winter was a couple of books from the library about Zentangles. All kinds of fun designs that it shows you how to draw, the ideas are endless!

Painting
Painting isn't something I've done much of but my oldest daughter loves it. Chris' sister-in-law is an artist and has taught Jasmine so much! She helped me choose paints and brushes for a birthday gift one year and it has been money very well spent. If you have a daughter who is interested in painting, it might be worth checking into getting some simple teaching books and a few supplies.

Calligraphy
Maybe you have a daughter that's into lettering. Some simple, felt tip pens or a calligraphy marker are some inexpensive things to buy and I'm sure the library would be a place to find books with lettering ideas or you might want to look into buying a book. It's fun to practice, practice, practice and a great thing to use on homemade cards, etc.

Homemade Cards
Speaking of cards... Making cards seems to be a natural girl thing. ☺ My younger girls love to take seed catalogues and cut stacks of flowers and glue them to cards. They usually end up with many more than they ever get used! We've never gotten into stamps but I know lots of people enjoy making cards with stamps. Something I did as a young girl was make cards using fabric and this iron-on stuff. I'm not sure of the exact name but it was similar, only I think it came in a roll and was from Walmart.

I would take fabric that had flowers or other objects and iron the heat n bond onto the back of it. Next, cut out your objects and then peel the paper off of the back and iron the objects onto your cards.

Doll Houses

Several times we have taken boxes and turned them into doll houses. This was a very simple one we made once upon a time.

Or you can get very elaborate like my nieces did...

Absolutely amazing, right? 

The details are incredible! I love it.

Embroidery, etc

Cross stitch and embroidery are some good old fashioned things that girls enjoy. If you or someone you know can teach your girls skills like knitting or crocheting, go for it! A neighbor lady taught me to knit when I was young. I've never actually done much with it but I spent hours playing around with it as a girl.

Bake/Cook

Maybe you have girls who enjoy being in the kitchen; let them have at it! ☺ I don't enjoy being in the kitchen and I wish I would. I've discovered that my oldest daughter does better than me with teaching kitchen skills to the younger two, so when she's in the mood, I let her! 

Google and YouTube
If you use the internet, in this day and age there is hardly any chance to run out of ideas for things to do! I'm going to include links to some things my girls have made/done; the ideas are truly endless.

*3D Snowflakes
These are fairly simple and really cool.
https://youtu.be/lT2oeNkTOAk

*Rubberband Bracelets
This was the THING to do there for a while. My girls made countless bracelets. There are many different styles, this is one of the easiest --
https://youtu.be/Q8q-d7UsMmA
And this one is a bit more complicated --
https://youtu.be/Xqw76cxMfyw

*Pom Poms with a fork
I don't think we've actually tried this but we looked at it once and it looks fun and fairly simple.
https://youtu.be/sNXXKZ_HEAQ

*Pom Poms using your hand
https://youtu.be/StO7IRBP8V4

*Paper Tulips
We made these once; a cheery thing come about February or March. There's lots of tutorials for other fun paper flowers, just google "paper flowers".
https://youtu.be/uYrc9RqU86w

*Paper Bag Books
The ideas for these are just amazing. You use brown, paper lunch bags or you use white or colored ones. We sewed ours together with the sewing machine or you can punch holes in the sides and thread a ribbon through or staple them together. One year we made one for my mom and dad like a little scrap book, each child did a couple pages.

I got tired of trying to find a tutorial I liked so I'll just very simply describe how to put the book together:

Step 1: Stack paper bags opposite directions

Step 2: Fold bags in half and place inside of each other to form a "book"

Step 3: Sew through your stack of bags right on the middle crease

Step 4: Decorate! The sky is the limit. The open edges of the bag create pockets to put things in; you can create pockets with the flaps on the inside; you can cover each page with decorative paper. People make journals, scrapbooks, photo albums, story books, recipe books, you name it out of these paper bag books! The following pictures are not mine but give you a bit of a visual.

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Whew. That was a lot of talking. I hope there is something amongst all of that to give someone ideas for long evenings. Anybody else like to share some ideas?