Now is the perfect time to start organizing activities with your child. In fact, encouraging your child’s creativity, building lasting memories, and including him or her in fun activities is a great way to pull them away from their tablet or TV show for a learning moment.

1. Build a fort

This activity is best for younger children. You will need the following items:

• pillows galore
• blankets
• large boxes or other items to drape the blankets over
• decorations

Help them put together the structural parts of the fort and then let them get creative with the rest. Your little one can decorate the outside of the fort with battery-powered lights or “wall art” made with their drawings. For the inside, he or she can decorate with homemade crafts, a string of glittering balloons, or comfy pillows. You can also hang a string phone (with two cups at each end) from one side of the fort to the other.

For fun inside the fort, you can add coloring books and crayons. Additionally, you could include a sensory bin filled with different items to explore. The types of activities don’t matter as much as the fact that they created something from their own hands and get to enjoy it. The idea is to provide your child with a special space to call their own.

2. Cookie-thon

This activity is best suited for older children and can be done anytime. The best part of this activity is that you can enjoy it more than once throughout the year.

Items you will need include the following.

• a variety of cookie recipes
• ingredients
• fun cookie patterns

When cooking with your child, a great deal of the fun for your children comes from being included in a typically adult activity. Children love to imitate their parents. As such, following the directions, measuring the ingredients, and mixing them together is a big part of the fun.

However, children also love to express themselves. To help your child express his or her inner artist, you can include a variety of cookie decorations and encourage them to be imaginative.
Because cooking can be a little messy, everyone should remember to wear a put on an apron to protect their clothing.

3. Wall art making

Another great way to help your child express his or her inner artist is to make homemade wall art. Because you can use just about any material, you and your child can make all sorts of hanging art. The key to this activity is to allow your child to design his or her own work. Some decorating materials include the following.

• pine cones
• foam spheres, cubes, and cones
• paper
• glitter
• paint
• pipe cleaners
• photos

Finally, one of the best parts of this activity is the finale–hanging the art. Having your child proudly hang the beautiful creation on the refrigerator, the door, or the wall is a special way to make memories that everyone will cherish for years to come.

4. Guess the surprise

Want to add a little fun to rewards for good behaviour? Turn it into a guessing game. Wrapping small gifts in extra-large boxes or larger gifts in odd-sized packages can be a fun way to allow your little ones to guess the contents. It’s also fun to let them watch their siblings and parents guess the contents of boxes they helped wrap.

5. Indoor snowflakes or leaves

For children who love to trace and cut paper, this activity can help turn the entire living room into a festive, snowy wonderland. Things you will want to include can vary. However, paper and child-safe scissors are a must.

In addition to tracing and cutting out the snowflakes or leaves, your little one can decorate his or her shapes with a variety of fun items. Some decorating ideas and additional items to get you and your little one started include the following.

• glue
• sparkles
• cotton balls
• glitter glue
• orange construction paper

Note: there really aren’t any rules. The goal is to have fun and spend time with your little ones, creating lots of stuff that will be displayed throughout the upcoming months.

for more great parenting tips, check out the other blogs on Cyber Parent.