So the vacations have already begun and the little monsters are jumping and running around the house and driving you mad!!! Those few hours of solitude when they were away to school are gone !!

Another problem – they get bored with their toys very soon.

The question – what to do???

How about some little activities to keep them occupied and interested ?!! These may even trigger their imagination and the play may go beyond the actual activity you had planned for them. Here is one such example for you, that i did with my little one a couple of days back.

While he was away to school, I arranged an activity for him to play in the evening.

I took all of his plastic water animals and arranged them in an ice tray. Then poured water over them and put the ice tray in the freezer.

Take a tray or any other container which has its sides up (to avoid the mess) as the ice will melt and loads of water will be poured over them. Along with it, you will need a squeeze bottle with a little warm water in it. Please ensure that the water is not hot as children will not be able to hold or squeeze the bottle properly.

If you dont have one, no worries. Make one yourself. Here are the instructions:

Just take any empty bottle (woolen safewash bottle/ shampoo etc). Now warm a skewer on the gas stove and punch a hole on the lid. Make 4-5 such holes. And the squeezy bottle is ready.

Take out the frozen animals ice cubes from the ice tray and throw them in the container. Give the squeeze bottle to your child and ask him to “rescue” the frozen animals. If your kids are bigger (mine is just 3), you may give some salt to them – it also helps melt the ice.

Keep the ice tray beside them. Ask the kids to rescue the animals one by one and put them back in the ice tray.

         

Its so much fun to see the excitement on their faces when they rescue the animals ! Let them explore it on their own. Do not interrupt the learning process, until and unless its really required.

     

Once they are done, ask them the names of all animals, what they eat, where they live, anything – this is very exciting for kids as they are already very interested on the rescued animals.

But dont worry, your involvement is only before and at the end of the play. 5 minutes to arrange the activity and maybe 5-10 minutes of interaction after the activity is finished.

Because, beyond that, this is what happened:

He got out his stacking blocks, play figures, more animals and busy for more than one hour.

         

Do not worry about the mess if there is any. Its just water and a mop does all the work. Put all the wet animals in the tray and put it under the fan to dry or keep it in your backyard to dry out on their own !!

You may alter the frozen animals water play in many ways: –

• add some food color to the water before pouring in the ice tray.
• put your children in the pool and give them the frozen animals.
• instead of ice cubes, take a big bowl, pour water and animals and freeze it.

Go on – let your imagination run around too !!

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