Hi, guys. Welcome back to my channel. In today's video, I'm going to be sharing with you 10
really cool and creative ways on how you can entertain the kids at home. I thought this
would be a really good video to make because we are now on week 12 in quarantine, I believe,
so I'm really hoping this video provides you with some cool ideas and inspiration on the
other ways that you can play with your kids. And if you do like this type of content, I've
actually made so many videos like this in the past. I've made videos on how to entertain
a six-month-old, a one-year-old, a two-year-old, a three-year-old, so I'll link all of those
previous videos in the description down below. And if you do [inaudible 00:00:36] content,
please consider subscribing. I would love to have you. Don't forget to give this video
a big like if you liked it. And without further ado, let's get into how to entertain your
kids. So the first activity that I'm going to show
you today involves Lego. All of my children love playing with Lego and they're so creative
with it, but sometimes it's nice to have a purpose and an idea of what you're building,
so we've recently started making Lego ziplines. So basically for this, you build a little
cable car and you can also put a Lego man inside it, then snap it onto a piece of string,
or as you can see here, we're using our washing line in the garden, and then you can just
let your little cable car go down the zipline. This is so much fun, and the boys loved doing
it for ages. You can make all different types of cable cars, sometimes we'll do it for two
little Lego man, sometimes for one like you can see here. And it also teaches them about
gravity and how the line needs to be positioned to work. This doesn't have to be an outdoor
game, you could easily use a piece of string indoors, attach it to a doorknob or something
like that and play this game inside if it's a rainy day.
Next up, I wanted to show you a really cool little science experiment. This is how to
make a DIY at lava lamp at home. This is something that we saw on Facebook and really wanted
to recreate because my middle son loves science experiments. You may already have all the
ingredients that you're going to need at home, so all you're going to need is a quarter cup
of water, some food coloring, vegetable oil, and an Alka Seltzer tablet. That tablet is
going to be what activates all of it so it's quite important, but it's really, really simple.
All you do is fill up a glass about halfway with oil, then add in a quarter cup of water,
and of course the water and the oil are going to separate. Then add in some food coloring.
It could be any color, but we wanted it to look like lava so we used red. We added about
10 to 20 drops of food coloring. And then all you have to do then is add the Alka Seltzer
tablets, and that is going to be fizzing up and it's going to create the whole lava lamp
experience. This is so cool. It really is mesmerizing.
It only lasts about five or so minutes, but for those five minutes the kids were so excited.
They loved it. And we actually ended up doing it a few times with a few different colors,
and they still talk about it now. They really, really think it was so cool. So this is definitely
a really good one to try. If you do do this at home with your kids,
I would also recommend filming it on your phone on the slow mode so that they can then
watch it back and see it all over again. As you can see from Jackson's little face, he
really loved it. Another experiment which uses similar ingredients
to the one I just showed you is called fireworks in a glass. This one is super simple and fun
to do as well. So all you do is put a small amount of oil into a glass and then add in
different drops of food coloring. Once you've added in all the food coloring, you'll want
to give it a really good stir, and that breaks up the food coloring into very tiny little
bubbles within the oil, then pour that oil on top of a glass of water, and you'll see
that the oil rises to the top. And then what happens is the food coloring in the oil starts
to separate from it and it comes down like this, and it creates this little fireworks.
It lasts for quite a long time as well and it's pretty cool so I wanted to show you it.
I would say that my kids' favorite game to play at home together is the floor is lava.
You can play this anywhere, anytime. It's completely free, it's so easy, and they love
it. All three of my boys being different ages, they just have so much fun doing this. So
what I tend to do is give them a course to make. So I'll say to them, "Get yourself from
the couch to the slide in the garden, without touching the lava" and then they have to build
a course like this. They'll just use all different types of objects so that they can step on
them. Yes, it's a bit messy, there's normally cushions everywhere, but they love it. They're
not on the screens, they're all playing together really nicely. It's also a great one if you
ever need to get the kids up to the bath, if they really don't want to go, you can say,
"Well, the floor is lava and you need to get from the living room to the bath without touching
the lava" and then they will make an obstacle course and you will get them to the bath with
no tears. So it's a really fun one so I wanted to show you that.
Now this next one seems a little bit extra, but bear with me because it's actually so
simple to do, and the kids really enjoyed it. So these are ice nature cupcakes, I guess
I'll call them. So the next time you go out for a walk as a family, consider picking a
few little flowers, ferns and leaves, anything really, and getting a good variety of little
bits of nature and taking them home with you. Then you can just line a cupcake case. We
actually ended up making six. So we just put a variety of different bits of nature into
the cupcake case and then you basically just pour some water over it and freeze that in
the freezer. As you can see, you then get these really cool ice cupcakes the next day.
We've made these once before, and Jackson really enjoyed playing with them in his outdoor
kitchen. He's got a little mud kitchen and he played with them in there. They're really
cool, especially on a hot day. They also just look really cool that if you turn them over,
the way that the flowers and the ferns are positioned, it's just really interesting and
exciting for them as well. Next up, I wanted to show you some marshmallow
constellations. I found this really cool printable on Pinterest, so I just printed it out and
then all you need is some mini marshmallows and some toothpicks as well. And then your
children can try and make the constellations out of the toothpicks and mini marshmallows.
This is not only educational, but it's really fun and a good one to do after lunch because
they will definitely end up eating some of the marshmallows. My youngest son, he didn't
really make the constellations, but he did make a little house. And then they also started
making stars and a hot air balloon, so they were getting really creative. I'm really recommending
this one because when I did this with the boys, for some strange reason, my three boisterous
boys were so very calm the whole time they were playing this. They were sat at the table,
I couldn't believe how quiet they were, so it's something they were really concentrating
on and they really enjoyed. I also really wanted to show you my favorite
DIY Playdough recipe. This is only two ingredient. All you're going to need is corn flour and
hair conditioner. You can also use some food coloring if you want to tint it or give it
a bit of a color, but it is super simple to make. All you do is two parts corn flour,
or I think it's called corn starch in Canada and America, two one part hair conditioner.
So I tend to do two cups of corn flour to one cup of the hair conditioner. I just pick
up whatever's on offer. You can go to Poundland and get a really big bottle of hair conditioner
and just use that. It's also great because it gives it another sensory element to it
because it has a really nice smell. I find whenever we play with this one with
the kids, I actually have soft hands afterwards. So if you do want to add a color to the Playdough,
it's important that you add the food coloring into the hair conditioner before you add it
into the flour. Then you just really stir it up or you can really kneed it with your
own hands and then you can play with it. It's great. As I said, it smells really good, it's
super soft and yeah, moisturizes your hands as well.
You can see Jackson. He just really loves it. I actually found this recipe once when
I was stuck at home and I didn't have a car and I just wanted to make playdough easily.
So I found this recipe online and I've been making it ever since. It's super fun to play
with. You can also put it into Tupperware and save it for another day.
Speaking of Play-Doh, I also wanted to show you how to make DIY surprise eggs just by
using Play-Doh and some small toys that you already have. So we started making these for
Fraser when he was little, he used to love to watch surprise egg videos on YouTube. He
always wanted me to buy him surprise eggs, but then I found that the toys inside them
were not always the best so I just started making them up like this.
So you basically just hide a small toy or it could be Lego, or we using Shopkin today,
just hide that into some Play-Doh and then give that to your little one to open and be
surprised about. So now Fraser actually makes them for Jackson. As you can see here, he
made him about six today and then gave them all to Jackson to open up, and it's so funny.
Although it's toys that you already have and they already know, when they open them up,
they get so excited and they act really surprised. It's such a fun one. Jackson could even make
them for me if he wanted to make me a surprise egg to open. It's just a really good one,
obviously it's free as well so that's always a plus.
The next one is so simple I actually feel silly telling you it, but it keeps them so
entertained that I had to share. We let the boys put their toy cars down the slide outside,
so I basically bring out a stool and put the basket of cars on top of it, and that way
Jackson can stand at the top of the slide and slowly put each car down the slide one
by one. We've recently started putting this little basket at the end so that they have
something to try and get the cars into, but it also really helps with the clear up at
the end. So then I can just pick up that basket, put it back in the other basket and it just
can keep going on and on and I can chill out. I can just sit in the sun and watch them do
this. I'm sure it would work with dollies or teddies or anything that you have, but
they just really love it. Another really simple one is to play hide
and seek, but with the toys in the sandbox. So you can call this digging for treasure
or we call it hide and seek. So the boys would just go and close their eyes, I will hide
various different little toys into the sandbox, and then they will come and try and find what
I've hidden in the sandbox. This is one that we just invented because although we bought
the sandbox, I felt like he wasn't really playing with it unless there were also other
toys in it. And obviously the element of surprise in hide and seek is just that bit more exciting.
So this is a really good one and one that they can play together as well.
The last activity that I'm going to show you today is a great memory game for your little
ones. So it's super simple. All you need to do is collect five random objects or toys
from around your house and then lay them out in front of your child and ask them to remember
the objects. Then tell them to close their eyes, cover up the objects with a tea towel
and take one of the objects away. And then when you take the tea towel away, ask them
if they can see which object is missing. It's just great, as I said, for memory, and it's
also really fun as well. So this is great. I think I started doing this when my children
turned about two years old, and you'll be surprised how much they can remember. Jackson
ended up eating the banana while we were playing this. But anyway, I hope you really enjoyed
this video. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in my next one. Bye, guys.