With fewer organised activities available between Christmas and New Year, entertaining your child during the darkest weeks of the year might seem a daunting task. We’re here to help with some simple musical ideas!
Dance and boogie
Put on your favourite Christmas album and dance! Vary it up by grabbing any parent working from home to join in, adding props such as scarves or ribbons or exploring some different ways to do one move! Not only will your child enjoy it, you will almost certainly benefit from it too.
Play instruments
Tired out from dancing? Grab the instrument bag and start playing along instead! Why not add to your ‘instrument’ collection by using things from around the house – empty rolls of wrapping paper make great boomwhackers and delivery cardboard boxes are amazing drums (as well as the usual saucepans, Tupperware, rice in a bottle!) If you play a musical instrument yourself, why not get it out of the case and play some simple tunes to your little one – a great excuse to hone your skills and you are guaranteed a captive audience! Get them to join in and play together!
Get imaginative
Turn your delivery boxes into a sleigh or the Polar Express! Babies will love moving around inside and older ones may even like to decorate theirs and embark on imaginary play. If you have lots of boxes left over from presents, don’t collapse them straight away but pop them in a corner and let your children loose! Toddlers may love stacking, older children will enjoy making or den/castle building – hours of entertainment!
Have a snowball fight
OK, maybe not a real one unless we are really lucky but why not save some wrapping paper from Christmas Day and let your children rip, scrunch and throw! We all know that young children find the wrapping and boxes the most interesting so why not keep it and use it to keep them entertained for a couple of weeks. Our teenagers had great fun throwing chocolate wrappers at us last weekend when an innocent (ahem!) wrapper went in their direction – so much hilarity and a hit with all ages! Like dancing, laughter is so good for us all!
And relax
Christmas is a busy time of the year, pandemic or not. The preparation, the cooking, the shopping. It is also an awesome time to relax – all those twinkly Christmas lights to watch and beautiful music to listen to. Why not dim your lights and put on some slower Christmas music or carols and sit or lie down with your child for a few minutes. Your child will need time to rest from all the excitement this Christmas and so will you. Take the time to actually be together, snuggle up and chill.
All of these ideas can be done within your own family unit but why not try some out with family members over Zoom or FaceTime? There’s nothing more fun that throwing snowballs at the grandparents! Do they have a favourite Christmas tune that you can play and virtually hug together?
We wish all of our families and community a wonderful festive period.
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