Activities For The Strong & Free Willed Child
Remember being a free willed child? Tossing toys aside out of boredom. Children want to explore and experience new things. AKA; Get into everything and make your life hell.
I remember as a child I would dig up the driveway for hours. I had a fascination with ants and loved to scrape away at the dirt so I could see the intricate tunnels they build in the dry soil on our property.
My own children are much the same, much preferring mud over playdough. You will usually find them making a disgusting mess outside mixing up potions of things I pretend I don’t know about. Once the clean up begins I just blast it all away with the hose.
- MUD
Let Them Play! Mud won’t hurt your child. Actually some research suggests Mud has some interesting benefits. So get out the dirt and some cups of water and hose them off when they are ready to come in.
2. RICE
Rice has excellent sensory qualities and endless activities. Grab some empty toilet rolls or tins. Half fill with rice and tape foil or plastic over the ends…
- Make Some musical shakers.
- Colour your rice and glue onto paper.
- Mix rice with play dough for textured building.
- Get some funnels and cups out for rice pouring
- In a large tub hide things in the rice to find.
Let your free willed child experience Rice play and sweep up the mess later.
3. Kitchen Utensils
I understand you don’t want your good kitchen stuff ruined. So keep a spare set. Don’t let on that this set belongs to your child, but they can play with them. You can pick up utensils from thrift shops at a bargain price. This way if they become ruined beyond repair (like during mud play) you wont be heartbroken throwing them away. Pretend cooking lasts a lot longer with the cool adults utensils
4. Flour
Take a large plastic bowl outside, a cup of flour and some water and let your child make a sticky mess. An alternative if you don’t like the sticky factor you can make sensory sand with two ingredients. You can also make puffy paint and Salt Dough prints.
5. JUNK MAIL
Don’t throw out your junk mail. Turn them into paper planes! Some junk mail provides the best paper for flying because its thick and fast! Let your Free Willed Child draw moustaches and beards on all of the people in the catalogues. Design earrings and crowns and throw away when done.