Lockdown At Home and Online Ideas

Ideas to do at Home

Ideas for things to do at home with babies, tots and children

101 Things to do at Home or in your Garden

I’ve put together a list of things we’re working our way through at my house! Find the full list and details here.

Or check out this article just about things to do in your garden – short, quick, fun activities as it is cold and wet at the moment and not the time of year to be outside for too long! Read it here.

Colouring Sheets

Check out these fab Mumbler colouring sheets to keep your little ones busy. You can download and print each one off by clicking on the purple text –

Under the Sea

Mermaid

Happy Colouring

Dressing Up

Robot Spot the Difference

Robots in Space

Colouring Sheets – Valentines Cards

Something to do over half term week…Print off and colour in these lovely cards and send them to your family for this Valentines Day at home!

You can download and print off all 4 designs by clicking here.

Craft Animals & People

We’ve been doing lots of craft, here’s a few of the favourite things we’ve made –

Loo roll animals
Rabbits, Chicks, Ladybirds, Caterpillars and much more! Wrap the loo roll in paper and stick on various bits to make it real! Don’t forget the googly eyes!

 

Crazy Creatures! 

  • Fork painting – Think this is my favourite chick, all with the back of a fork…
  • Butterfly – Fold the paper and snip… Drawer the butterfly and starting on the outside of the wings, stick on. Finally add the body and draw on the antennae’s, not forgetting “fluffing” up the folded wings
  • Sheep – Draw a sheep onto a paper plate, stick on the balls of cotton wool and colour the ears and feet plus sticking on the eyes and mouth

Inspire Ignite – Children’s Emotional Intelligence Resources

inspire igniteInspireIgnite was founded in 2014 by Mental Health Nurse Sue Altass and Social Worker Hannah Cheshire. They set up with the aim of making a real difference to mental health by working with young people to encourage personal development, confidence, and self-esteem. They offer programmes that schools and colleges use for all children and young people, to help them understand what makes them tick and learn how to make choices that have a positive impact on their well-being and the students future. They also have a range of resources for parents to use at home.

positive parrot negative newtThey have lots of books and downloadable resources around their characters Positive Parrot and Negative newt, and ideas to use at home with young children. You can buy the books or download the resources for free on their website here.

For more information email Sue Info@inspireignite.co.uk or visit their website.

Make a Piping Bottle to Decorate Biscuits

We turned a used plastic bottle into a piping bag to decorate some biscuits! We made the biscuits first as one activity (recipe below) but you could use plain Digestive’s or Rich Tea’s. Next we made our DIY piping bag –

Rinse out a plastic drinks bottle, remove the lid and make a small hole in it (we pushed a nail in with blu-tac behind to push into). Make some icing by mixing icing sugar with a little bit of water and add food colouring. Pour the icing into the bottle and you have a piping bag to create designs on your biscuits.

Biscuits – our recipe was a simple one:

  • Melt 50g of butter and 3 tablespoons of golden syrup in the microwave or in a pan on the hob.
  • In a bowl mix 175g self raising flour and 1 tablespoon of sugar (we also added 1 teaspoon of cinnamon as my kids love the taste of it).
  • Pour in the melded butter/syrup and add 2 tablespoons of milk, mix together to form a dough
  • Wrap in clingfilm and chill in the fridge for 15 mins
  • Flour the surface and roll out the dough, cut out your shapes with cutters
  • Bake in the over at 180 degrees C for 8-10 minutes
  • Leave to cool the decorate with icing

Make Your Own Soaps

We’ve made our own soaps as gifts for family and friends! It was super easy and nice to do some craft that was clean and nice to clear up rather than the usual load of glitter, paint and glue on the floor (in fact clearing up also doubled up as cleaning the kitchen!). It’s also gone down very well as a gift as everyone needs to wash their hands more than ever! We got this idea from the CBBC TV show Craft Party so thanks to them for the inspiration.

Take a plain bar of large soap. Grate with a cheese grater into a bowl. Add food colouring, choice of colour is up to you but my daughter chose pink as usual. Add 2-3 tablespoons of water and mix to a paste. Place into biscuit cutters to shape, we did hearts and stars. Pop in the fridge to set and that’s it! We took ours out of the cutters, wrapped in tissue paper and added some ribbon then went out on our scooters to deliver them!

make your own soap

Mess-Free Ideas to Entertain Toddlers at Home

I’ve put a list of ideas for entertaining toddlers at home, especially mess free ones (thanks to my sister and 20 month old nephew for some of these!). Read the full article here

Mumbler’s Favourite Online Education Websites

Here are some useful online educational resources, some free and some you need a subscription:

  • BBC Bitesize – Free, easy to use, split by secondary and primary, age, topic then lessons for children to watch and read online. Also some fun educational games too. Find it here.
  • Twinkl – activities to download and print off.  Find it here.
  • ASE (the Association for Science Education) – Science lessons by year group across Primary age, easy to watch and loads of topics. Find it here.
  • Phonics Play – great for all KS1 children. Login here.
  • Reading Eggs – good lessons for Primary age children, split by age and ability in phonics and maths. Find it here.
  • Hit the Button – free to use website with lots of quick maths questions, to see how many you get in a minute and try to beat it. Find it here.
  • Oxford Owl – tips for parents on how to teach their children, activities and reading resources, all free. Find it here.

Shaving Foam Painting

We tried some shaving foam painting, it was fun and not too messy (as most of the mess was contained on a tray)! Ideal for any age, little ones will enjoy the textures and colours and older children will enjoy making the designs and mixing colours.

  1. Squirt a layer of shaving foam on a tray
  2. Add splodges of paint in different colours and make patterns
  3. Press a sheet of plain paper lightly down on top and leave to dry (they take a long time to dry)

Here’s how ours turned out….

Rainy Day Ideas

wallpaper drawing, at home craft activities and ideas for childrenIf we get some wet, rainy days this summer (I hope we don’t!), we have some Mumbler top rainy day ideas to help entertain little ones at home, including:

  • Wallpaper drawing
  • Junk Modelling
  • Treasure Hunt Around the House
  • Make Your Own Slime
  • Make Your Own Play Dough
  • Baking (Rocky Road Recipe)
  • Lego Challenges
  • Painting – geometric patterns, painting rocks and using household items
  • Messy Play
  • Home Movie Day
  • Indoor Picnic or an Indoor racetrack

You can read the full article with details of how to do each one on Mumbler here.

×