When your kids aren’t in school or occupied in some other way, you have to think of a way to enrich their minds while having fun with them. As your children grow up, they engage more and more with the world around them. Even if you aren’t a teacher, you can still show your kids the world and its inner workings. If you want to keep your kids curious, try these methods of helping them interact with the world around them.
Start a Puzzle
What kid doesn’t love jigsaw puzzles? Make sure the puzzle you choose is within your children’s capabilities. Choose a puzzle with a fun image on the front, whether real or a cartoon, that will entice your kids to complete it.
Working on a puzzle steadily throughout the week will help your children build their problem-solving skills. After they’re finished with it, you can frame and hang it.
Build a Science Lab
You may not be able to build a laboratory in your backyard, but you can still create ways for your children to explore science. Making a butterfly garden in your yard might be the best way for your kids to interact with the beautiful bugs that frequent floral and colorful areas.
When developing a small butterfly garden for your backyard, remember to let your natural plants grow rather than using chemicals on them. Those chemicals can harm butterflies just as easily as they can kill weeds.
Tell Stories
Encourage your children to make up their own stories. See what they can come up with on the spot when you give them a broad topic. Their stories might not make sense at first — or at all if your children are young — but you’ll be left with a greater understanding of their imagination and the stories they like to tell and hear about. This knowledge can help you in the future by allowing you to buy books you know they’ll enjoy.
Teach Them How to Play With Others
As your children grow, so do their abilities to play with the world around them. While they may start out playing on their own or observing the world around them as others play, they eventually learn to play cooperatively with others by honing their problem-solving and teamwork skills. You can help your children practice their social skills by playing with them, indoors or outside. This way, they’ll be able to blossom when they encounter peers their own age.
Have a Dance Party
What better way to get rid of excess energy than by dancing? Put on your children’s favorite tunes and have the party to end all parties. Encourage them to create dance moves on the spot.
You can even teach them popular dances when you are growing up. The great part about dance parties is that you can sit down once you get tired and watch your kids continue the party for you.
Encourage Them to Make Art
Every day that you want your children to explore the realms of art tries setting out different materials. One day, they can work with charcoal, while another day, they might work with oil pastels or watercolor paint. Making art can help relieve children of stress and soothe anxiety symptoms if they display any. Plus, it helps them hone their skills with a hobby that is just as fun as beneficial.
Show Them Card Tricks
Even the simplest card tricks easily amuse kids because they look like pure magic. Now is the perfect time to practice mastering your skills while showing your kids how to do easy card tricks. They’d love to learn a special kind of magic that they can show off to their friends. As they get older, you can show them more complicated magic tricks to delight them even more.
Play Pretend
Your children will love the opportunity to play pretend with you. When young, people’s imaginations have no limitations. Playing with your children will allow you to jump into a world of their design, one where they can be anything they want — and you can be anything they want, too. Spending more time with your kids can help you bond with them, and you will make memories that last a lifetime, even after your children grow up and leave home.
Read Together
Pick out an age-appropriate book to read with your children. You can spend a whole afternoon reading to your children or reading a chapter out of a book each day. Through this activity, you can explain new words to your children and expand their vocabulary.
You can always switch books if one becomes too dull for any of you. There are plenty of books in the world, so your family is bound to love one of them.
Play a Trivia Game
Trivia is fun for any budding scholar. Children love learning about new things, no matter the topic. Learning trivia that may seem pointless at first can positively affect your memory in the long run, so having trivia nights is beneficial to both you and your kids. As long as you keep the trivia questions light and something that your kids would be interested in, you can keep them interested in learning for as long as you want.
Expand Your Children’s Minds
By spending more time with your children and encouraging them to be creative, you can help your children grow into more well-rounded people. Supporting them as they use their creative abilities means fostering their best possible growth. You also expose them to different lifestyles and hobbies they could be interested in as they get older. You can guide your children down the right path to be more well-rounded in the future.
