February Half-Term Indoor Ideas

Half-term already?! London’s typical cold and wet weather might have you searching for engaging indoor activities for your young children. So here are some fun and easy teacher-proof activities that you can enjoy together at home and, with minimal mess!

Go Sensory
Young children learn through hands-on experiences and they use their senses to explore the world around them. Young children love sensory and messy play. It sparks their curiosity, allows them to experiment, try something again and again and there is no right or wrong way.

• Sensory Bags

  Sealable bags filled with paint, foam, gel, or even hair gel offer a mess-free way for children to explore textures. They can squish, press, mix colours (mess-free) and even use their fingers to trace shapes or letters that you can place inside the bag, a great workout for those little fingers and hands.

• Sensory Bins

  Fill clear small storage boxes with sand, rice, or pasta and add items like spoons or different sized cups for pouring, scooping, mixing, transferring and measuring. Such fun way for children to explore concepts like volume, capacity, size and texture. You can also add small animals and props to encourage imaginative and role-play. Keep a few boxes always filled, super handy when you need to keep your little ones entertained and screen-free.

Creative Play

Creativity is not only one of the top skills needed for future jobs, creativity makes us human. Providing children with open ended materials ignites their imagination and allows them to work out novel ways in which to use them. It is also a vehicle for self-expression and wellbeing.

• Puppet Theatre

  Transform a cardboard box into a stage! Cut out a big enough window and use a glue gun to attach fabric on either side to create some cute curtains. Craft a range of characters using fabric scraps, lollipop sticks, felt, and old gloves (for finger puppets) or socks (for hand puppets). Use a glue gun to attach yarn for hair and add some googly eyes. Choose your favourite stories and have your children re-enact them or create their own ones. Don’t forget your tickets and popcorn!

• Shadow Theatre

  Use the same puppet theatre setup, but with a light behind a sheet to create enchanting shadow plays. Get creative, use your hands or create your own silhouettes out of paper.

• Home-made Play Dough

  Even young children can make their own playdough! Just follow this easy recipe and don’t forget to add colours, scents, dried herbs like lavender or rosemary or even textures for an extra sensory boost:

  2 cups of plain flour

  1 cup of table salt

  1 cup of warm water

  1 tbsp cooking oil

  Get your little one to help you by mixing all the ingredients in a bowl. It works better if they use their hands until the mixture feels like dough. If your dough is too wet or runny, just add a little extra flour. Then, place the dough on a flat surface and use your hands to knead it for a few minutes or until it no longer feels sticky.
  Have you heard about dough disco? Play some music and let your children explore, squeeze, flatten, sculpt, roll or even cut the playdough to the rhythm of the music. This is a great exercise for their fine motor skills and a great pre-writing warm up!