Quick Click: 12 Ways to Entertain a Preschooler and an Older Child
June
23
, 2006
Beat the "nothing-to-do" blues
Given the right guidance, preschoolers and grade-schoolers often get along famously. Both are able, and the older kids can help the younger ones when a challenge arises. Try these activities when little ones and slightly older ones play together. You make the suggestions and help assemble the materials; the kids create the fun.
- Working on the Railroad: Make a train out of empty boxes. Stores like Costco and Sam's Club have piles of them for the taking. Hand out bandanas and hats as costumes, and play a CD of train sounds or Woody Guthrie songs. Let the kids venture to destinations of their choice.
- Whatever Floats Your Boat: Make boats from Styrofoam blocks or meat trays, with a paper sail held in place with a stick, bamboo skewer, toothpick, or lollipop stick. Sail in a pond, a pan of water, the backyard pool, or the bathtub. (Watch kids closely whenever they're near water — don't rely on the older child to keep the younger one safe.)
- The Wild Blue Yonder: Make tongue-depressor gliders; glue them on blue paper with cotton-ball clouds. Each child can write her name and the name of her glider on the paper with white chalk.
- Stuffed Animal Scene: Ask the kids to gather all the stuffed animals in the house. They can set them in a "boat" (dresser drawer, cardboard box, or laundry basket), make up a story about where they are going, and give each animal a role to play: captain, first mate, sailor, deck swabber, cook.
- Roll ‘Em Up: Kids love rolling pins — or let them use a can or heavy plastic cup to flatten sandwich bread. Cut out shapes using cookie cutters. Spread with soft strawberry cream cheese and decorate with raisins or mini chocolate chips. Enjoy as a snack!
- Put Me in the Zoo: Hand out paper plates, glue sticks, bits of yarn, and other craft materials. Have the children make animal face masks.
- Super Chefs: Bake turtle bread or pretzels together. Dissolve an envelope of yeast in 1 ½ cups of warm water. Add a teaspoon each of sugar and salt and 4 cups of flour. Mix until the dough forms a ball. Knead on a floured surface, then pick off sections to make a big turtle with legs and a head. Or roll out snakes to shape into pretzels. Paint tops with beaten egg white and sprinkle with salt. Bake on a greased cookie sheet at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes.
- Green Thumbs: Plant lima beans in paper cups of soil. Water and put in a sunny window; sprouts should appear in less than a week. Or line an empty glass with a wet paper towel and tuck the beans between the glass and the towel. Keep the paper towel damp, and within a few days the seeds should sprout. Then plant them in soil so they can grow.
- Soapy Sculptures: Pass out cakes of soft white bath soap. The kids can carve them with craft sticks or plastic knives and score with forks, old toothbrushes, or their fingernails.
- Totable Totems: Show kids how to make a totem pole out of an egg carton. Cut the top off the carton, trim the sides, and cut the bottom row in half so the totem stands. Paint faces on each section (suggest likenesses of relatives or friends). Glue cardboard wings on the back, so they extend from either side.
- Science Lab: Split a stalk of celery halfway up, and place each end in a separate cup of water dyed with a different shade of food coloring. In several hours, the veins and leaves will take on the colors.
- Leaf It to Me: Go outside to gather leaves of different sizes and shapes — and colors if the season allows. Make people using the collected leaves for hair, body, face, hats, and clothing (glue onto stiff paper). Add detail with crayons, paint, markers, and other art materials.
