What are some good activities to do with my kids at night?

Question

My husband is away right now, and I work all day. My nights are filled with dinner, baths, cleaning. What is something I can do with my 31/2 year old and 9 year old that is interactive. I want to teach my daughter some more basic skills like numbers, ABC's and shapes, but in my crunch time, what would be some good items to work with to do this? She has a short attention span too. I think I can have my older son interact with this too. I just need some tips..please & thanks

Answer 1

freeze tag

tv tag

get a trampoline

get a clown....never mind

feed them way too much

buy ddr

wow this is getting expensive

Answer 2

last night we made muffins. that was fun

Answer 3

Reading to your younger child is a good idea. I used to play board games with my older kids.  There are also lots of good educational games you could find and play with the younger one.

Answer 4

my 3yr old granddaughter likes to do painting  colouring making things with play dough and art and craft with pom poms and glitter,or games which the 9yr old can join in snap cards there is so much.

   and also large cards with the alphabet on ,each letter is printed in different colour's it has been good for ours she can count to 20 and also knows her alphabet, through doing these thing with her.so good luck.

Answer 5

When I wanted my daughter to interact with family more I would bring crayons, paper, scissors ( preschool ), and glue.

All kids love games and love numbers but I think so much has been taken away from imagination by television and board games.

I, my daughter, and her coisons would sit at the table and make our own books.  We draw letters, shapes, and do whatever we want with them making our own books.  My daughter and nephews had more fun making them than reading or playing board games.  They loved showing them off to grandparents and friends.  

Everyone was amazed how fast my daughter started learning her shapes, numbers, and ABC's.  It also brought her and her much older coisons together because they were able to help each other with learning and imagination.  

It the funnest thing I do with my daughter. We still read and play board games, but seeing her face light up when someone praises her for a great job she did making her own book its amazing !!!

Answer 6

foam letters in the bathtub. You can practice words and letters with those and make up little games.

Answer 7

watch like family movies and play board games!

thats what my mom used to do with my family when i was younger!

Answer 8

Read to them, my mom would read to me and my brother all the time, we loved it. I swear it helped my grammar spelling and reading skills. I could read before I started kindergarten and in the 5th grade I had a 12th grade reading level. PARENTS READ TO YOUR KIDS!!

Answer 9

games, movies

not like stupid things, but games and movies that

help kids learn. like skillbuilders.

i dont know in your area, but where i live there are teaching stores

that have all sorts of fun activities that you can buy or get ideas from.

Answer 10

do what my mom did buy them a ps2 and watch how much theyll be amazed and intertained.giving you alot more time to do ur own things

Answer 11

do some arts and crafts and maybe try sitting down and watchign a movie with them.. baking might be fun too

Answer 12

nothing better then candy land!  

Answer 13

Well you could get coloring books that have a letter or number on each page and then your daughter is learning how to count and her abc's in a fun way.

I mean what kid doesn't like to color!!

And as for the 3 1/2 year old she/he can just color =]

Hope I helped.

Answer 14

i think that a great thing to do would be play lots of board games or card games with every one. another great thing to do would take a walk to the park if its not to cold.

  

Answer 15

You could play card games like go fish and crazy eights. Also sorry the board game is probably do-able with both children too. You could have your nine year old help you read a picture book while you cuddle with both of them. Just make sure that the little one can see the pictures too!  These games and the picture book idea don't take a lot of time and you could make it a ritual right before bed time.

Answer 16

Bake cookies into different shapes and they can decorate them and count them out to wrap for gifts for the Grandparents.

Answer 17

read them a book.

Answer 18

make special foods like  ants on a log , kids are more likeley to eat the food if they have fun making it,

Ants on a log:

about 3 1/2 inch peice of celery

small amount of peanut butter in the dip

and a couple peices of rasins on the top

Answer 19

here is a website where you can give them these coloring pages about food items.

http://abcteach.com/directory/shape_book...

or put them in a daycare that teaches them and cares for them.

&& play boards games with them for example :

Candy Land, Original Memory, Sequence for kids, Scrabble, and more..

just go to the website below to buy them on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Best-Board-Games-K...

Answer 20

u could play board and card games, also watch educational shows lik elmo

Answer 21

We also had/have foam letter to play with in the bath, Dylan would play with them and learn, and Dan and I would leave each other messages across the tiles :)  it's good because he can actively see communication in action, I'd get a call "mommy! daddy left you a message!" and come read it out to him.

We also got a Leap-pad thought, they are a really good toy for learning.

Answer 22

play some learning games.. you can buy them at wal-mart zellers.

get games that will help him with his numbers, shapes, spelling, reading and all that good stuff.. and you want  learning to be fun so they want more of it.. then they will be learning quickly :)

Oh and vidio games are good the learning ones.. they have them you just have to look for them..  i have a dora one for my daughter and it has everything and its funn  :)

Answer 23

this might sound lame but I remember one of my favorite activities when I was little is when my step mom would play "marshmellow math" with me.  You can buy (or make) some flash cards with shapes, colors, letters, anything basically.  we played with the mini marshmellows.  with the math she taught me how to add and subtract with the marshmellows but maybe you can think of something fun with other categories... maybe if the kid answers the right color they get a marshmellow... or use another treat if you want- m&m, grapes...  main thing is to just have fun!

I definately plan on using this when I have kids.

Answer 24

Good question..There are many things you  can do with your toddler,such as  read her a book, count numbers, ABC song maybe A is for Apple .... reward her when she does well, encourage her to do even better. make her love you. do fun stuff she wants to do. alot of times kids will tell you wat they want to do so its your job to listen.. and remember having fun is the most part of all because if your child isnt having fun there not gonna try their hardest. soo remeber try your hardest to have fun!! Good luck!!

-Tom  

Answer 25

CADO by crainium is a fun bord game when you draw, act out, and make stuff out of clay

its really fun and interactive here is their website so you can seee all of crainiums fun games

http://www.hasbro.com/games/cranium/home...

hope i helped=]

sry for baf grammer