Get Creative & Connect Indoors!

By Elizabeth Sautter, MA, CCC-SLP“Baby It’s Cold Outside” by Dean Martin is one of my family’s favorite songs.  It always cues us to make hot coco and popcorn, get cozy and be creative with some good, old fashioned, creative family time… indoors!Here are some of our favorites to share…Music: We love listening to music or creating our own. Just move the furniture, have a dance party with some new moves, freeze dance, play musical chairs, make instruments or even create a band. This can go on for hours. We often watch music videos and try to reenact the roles of the pop stars and their moves. Sometime we even make our own. Be sure to have the video camera rolling so you can capture these moments and use them to embarrass your kids when they get older!Build A Fort: We use our dining room table and put sheets over the top so it’s nice and dark inside. We put cozy blankets on the floor with pillows, the digital clock and flashlights. We invite our favorite stuffed animals in and read to them using the flashlights. Slumber parties in the fort are nights to remember!Sleeping bag or sack races is always a great way to burn off energy.  If you have carpeted stairs, you can get into your sleeping bag and slide down the stairs.  Careful, this can be a bit dangerous if you go too fast or if the carpet is not soft enough.  Another idea is to time each other hopping down the hallway with both feet in a pillowcase. This is similar to a sack race but one person goes at a time.Boxes, boxes and more boxes!  Kids love making houses, castles or rockets out of paper boxes.  My boys love getting smaller boxes and cutting holes in them, taping them together and making mazes for their cars or smaller stuffed animals to navigate through.Cooking is always a fun thing to do.  Pouring ingredients, cracking eggs, stirring, baking and then eating…what more do I have to say? Make a picnic with a blanket on the kitchen floor for some added adventure.Write letters to each other.  Kids love to receive mail.  Set up boxes around the house and help them write letters and put them in the mail boxes.  If they need help, write a template or have them just draw pictures.  If they want, have them write letters to neighbor friends or family to send out.Fun with Balloons: Blow them up half way and then let them go; make it into a race.  Or blow them up all the way, tie them and then play balloon toss back and forth and try to keep them up in the air as long as possible.Get Physical: Exercise with videotapes, yoga, jumping jacks, sit-ups, arm wrestling, etc.  My two boys love watching and doing my Pilates videos with me.  At times they work on their own. They often help me by holding my feet down or even try sitting on my back to make me work even harderBoard Games: You can’t go wrong with good old-fashioned board or card games.  Shoots and Ladders, Monopoly, Apples to Apples, Whoonu, War, Go-fish, and Pass the Pigs are some of our favorites.Arts and Crafts:  Kids love to imagine, explore and create with paints, crayons, scissors, glitter, play dough, shaving cream, chalk and all kinds of art materials.  Put down the newspaper and let the mess turn into magic.These activities can be useful for following verbal and written directions, turn-taking, sequencing, planning, cooperating, practicing flexibility and self-regulation. Most of all they are great for bonding and building positive social memories. So many possibilities for quality family time and indoor fun can be great in all types of weather!