5 Fun Ways To Engage Kids during the Holiday Season

Holidays are synonymous to fun and lots of fun. Holidays make you want to think of unwinding from your everyday hustle bustle. Holidays are supposed to be meant for family time, relaxing and what not.

Holidays however are not synonymous to fun and relaxation for mums, they are instead days for completing all the work that stays unfinished for days. Holidays are meant for cleaning and laundry and being with kids 24/7. Such days sometimes already add to the existing chaos in a mom’s life.

If I were to tell you that there are few things that you can engage your kids in to remove some time for yourself, would you be willing to try them. I think you should because these are completely tried and tested ways by a mum and Atleast one these ways has worked every now and then.

Enroll your child for a sport class – Yes, sports is not meant to be watched, its meant to be played as well! You will thank me once you have enrolled your child for a sport class. It’s OK even if you enroll them for a sport class that is once a week kind of class. Playing a game will keep their mind and body occupied. A sport class will not only work on their fitness, it will also help them build confidence and boost their social skills.

While the children are at a sport class, you can use that time to read a book, watch Netflix, make phone calls and if your child’s sport class allows you to leave the child and move away from the premises, then you can even plan a visit to the Spa. The days my son is at his football class, he eats well and sleeps early too. So this one, is a complete win-win for me.

Engage them in activity classes – Engaging kids in a fun class is a great way for kids and parents to bond together. It also helps mommy and babies to make lots of fun and have a great time together. You can choose from various exciting classes like:

• Lego Classes
• Painting and Drawing Classes
• No fire cooking classes, because kids sure get excited to eat what they make. This also helps them understand about different food items and why it is necessary
• Music Class
• Dance Class
• A story reading or a book reading class.

All these classes should be done as an out of the regular routine classes so that your children look forward to them and enjoy them.

DIY – Yes, DIY always comes to rescue. From Pinterest, to YouTube to Instagram, every social media channel is full of creative, innovative and unique DIY activities. Engage in DIY activities with your children, as this not only boost their creative thinking, it also helps them understand the importance of reducing wastage and recycling. From creating cute and crafty boxes, masks to creating fun DIY games, the internet is full of these. My personal favorite is the tin can bowling. You just convert old tins into funny characters and let your children bowl them away.

Storytelling and Dramatization – You can always enroll your child in a story telling class and help them improve their imagination. It would be great if you can remove sometime for your child and practice story telling with a little bit of dramatization added to it on a weekly basis. It not only fuels their creativity but it also helps them improve their communication skills. Kids do not need fancy costumes to dress up, you can use basic props lying around in the house for narrating the story. Let the kids narrate a few lines from the story or add to it. It indeed is an excellent way to keep the kids engaged.                                                  

Pretend Play and Free Play – It is not necessary that your children need someone to play with all the time. Invest in good pretend play toys and let your kids use their own imagination to play and enact various roles. Self-play is equally important for your child to be confident about himself/herself .We are often worried about cleaning out the mess kids make with their toys hence it’s important we hand over kids toys that are not hazardous to them. Let them play with blocks, dolls, shape sorts, magnetic blocks, hand them a child friendly crayon and some papers and let them scribble or draw or simply make visual stories.

It is always advisable to plan a week’s activity in advance, just the way we mums plan our grocery and kitchen calendar. Add in a surprise to it every now and then. Plan a visit to the park or the mall too. You can even organize play dates with fellow moms which gives you enough time to socialize and lets your kids make merry too.