Saturday, November 1, 2008

Keeping Children from Getting Bored While on Outings

Parenting has a great article up called 22 Boredom-Busting Games which provides games to keep your kids entertained on outings.

Some of my favorite ideas from this article are:

For the grocery store:

"Pick a letter and take turns naming items in the store that start with it. Get creative: "B" is for banana, but also for a box of cereal! 4 and up"

"Name three items your child can look for, like something that's bigger than his fist, something that's liquid, and something that's red. 3 and up"

"Choose a color for the day. Tell your child that her job is to watch and tell you every time you put something of that color in the cart. 2 and up"

For the restaurant:

"Arrange the silverware in a tic-tac-toe grid and use packages of sugar (white) and artificial sweetener (pink) as X's and O's. 4 and up"

"When your child gets antsy from coloring the kids' menu, use the crayons to make rubbings of the things you have on hand -- a fork, a penny, a rough table surface. Just put a paper menu over each item, rub with the side of the crayon, and watch the textures appear, in color! 2 and up"


I will definitely have to try some of these on our next trip to the store or out to eat! My children get easily bored at the grocery store and hopefully these ideas will entertain them (at least for a little bit)!

2 comments:

Maude Lynn said...

I'm definitely going to give some of these a try!

Anonymous said...

I love the grocery store game. What a great way to distract them from the "boredom" that is grocery shopping.

 
Blogger Templates by Wishafriend.com