All this time at home with the kids has made everyone a little more creative. We spoke to some of our mummy blogger friends to find out how they are spending time indoors and what they’ve learnt, get inspired with our mini Q&As!
We absolutely love anything that involves creative play. One of our favourite things that we’ve done recently, was collecting flowers from our daily walks and freezing them in ice cube trays. From picking the flowers, and enjoying the walk, to freezing them and then smashing them to bits with toy hammers, we all had HOURS of fun with NO stress and very little mess.
We’ve also been painting, drawing, making fairy gardens and dinosaur lands, baking, lots of open-ended play and being treated to a dance show from the kids.
Max loves the shorts, t-shirts & hoodie and Evie loves to play in the floaty dresses and a cardigan when she gets chilly!
Get yourself a storage trolley! We’ve got a tall plastic organiser with drawers that’s been a lifesaver for keeping the kids’ arts and crafts bit and bobs all in one place.
Get Pinterest! Whenever I’m stuck for ideas for things to do, it’s my go-to app to inspire me and has an endless amount of beautiful ideas.
Give yourself and the children ‘one fun thing’ to do each day. It helps us to stay positive and have something to look forward to.
Keep it simple. If lockdown has taught me anything it’s that the simplest things in life, bring the most joy.
We have been spending our time with lots of hands-on practical activities such as drawing, painting and junk modelling. Like lots of people we have been baking more than ever but our new favourite daily activity is smoothie making. We try to make different combinations of fruit and veg each day for variety and there are lots of skills for little fingers – carefully chopping fruit, scooping seeds and weighing ingredients. Our favourite recipe is a Creamy Mango Smoothie: 1 banana, half a chopped mango, chia seeds, a big dollop of Greek yoghurt, a splash of coconut water and some ice, then blitz. It’s so thick and feels like a real treat!
The Darella dresses as they are so easy – the jersey is really comfortable and practical for the girls to wear day to day, but the style is super cute. I love the drop waist and the shirred shoulders. Also, the Peri pom-pom top in organic cotton. It looks so bohemian and is perfect alongside tangled hair from a day of play and bare toes.
Like lots of families, our life before the lockdown was lots of rushing around! I’ve learnt that we really don’t need to be dashing from place to place to keep ourselves busy. The slower pace at home is helping us all to feel more relaxed, and I can see how much the girls are learning from ordinary day-to-day activities. Helping us to prepare food and set the table, loading the washing machine, watering the plants in the garden are all simple things that they enjoy doing around the house.
My top tips? Save egg boxes! They’re such a versatile object which can be used in so many ways rather than put into the recycling immediately. Try putting a mixture of beads or buttons into the flat side and asking children to sort them into shapes or colours in the grooved side. Or send them into the garden with an empty egg box and ask them to put one ‘special’ item into each section. We also use them to hold paint for finger painting and have cut them up and made them into fairy families.
Spending so much time indoors can be harder than usual to keep an almost 3-year-old entertained! I plan lots of mini activities to keep her busy but remembering she only has a short attention span. Playdough and baking are our favourites! We love creating things from cardboard boxes too. We have made a car, a pirate ship, a fire engine and a 6ft tiger and invited him round for tea!
My favourite outfit to dress Matilda in while at home is her little ice cream dungaree set! It’s pretty and practical (and the stripes hide any spillages!)
Try to stay organised. Have lots of short activities planned so when your toddler is becoming restless you can quickly occupy them again without them becoming bored and destructive!
Tidy as you go! Nothing worse than putting them to bed and coming downstairs to lots of mess – come downstairs to a chill on the couch instead!
We’ve tried to make it as fun and entertaining as possible. We definitely have been baking a lot more than usual and Florence really enjoys helping me with it. She loves playing playdough and it’s her favourite activity. We had a go at making our own which was a hit. We’ve also recently discovered 3D Magnetic Building Tiles and Flo absolutely adores them! She can spend ages independently just building things and is so proud of her creations. Another thing that she’s loving at the moment is playing with ‘magic foam’ as we call it. You simply, in a bowl, add a splash of shower gel, dash of paint (not necessary if you haven’t got any) and a splash of water. Mix it all with a mixer for a good few minutes and it creates a ton of bubbles. Florence loves playing with it and pretends to make cupcakes with it or hides her little toys in it.
One thing for sure, the most exciting things for children are very often the simplest ones that you already probably have in the house.
We both absolutely adore Naomi Colourful Splodge Dress. It’s Florence’s firm favourite. Very often she even asks to wear it. ‘Mummy can I please wear the pink spotty one’. It’s so comfortable and perfect for sunny days in the garden.
Having some kind of routine always helps. It’s helpful as much for parents as it is for children.
Daily walks outside are also so important to us. We look forward to it and nothing can beat a bit of fresh air. I find that on days when we don’t go out, our moods and energy levels definitely drop.
Tip for us ladies, a bit of make-up and nice clothes make the world of a difference and it’s a lovely boost of confidence. It works a treat for me when I feel tired and low.
Most of all, I’ve learnt that it’s so important to be kind to ourselves. It’s crucial not to put too much pressure on what we do and stop comparing. If we’re content, our kids are content. Nobody is perfect and we’re all just trying hard to do our best and navigate our lives in a world that I’m unfamiliar to us. We’re all in this together.
We’ve spent our time indoors as productively as possible but with as much fun as possible. The children have schoolwork to complete each day so after breakfast, we start with that and after lunch, we use the afternoons to play, bake cakes, a firm fave activity of Tiggy’s and even to simply curl up on the sofa and have a movie afternoon. In essence, we’ve just “gone with the flow” not to put any pressure on ourselves, but also to keep ourselves busy and fill our days. A new favourite activity of Tiggy’s is to bake whether that’s with real ingredients, play dough or even with sand in her sandpit! Tiggy’s discovered a real love of all things baking.
My favourite items to dress the children in while at home are possibly far too practical for what Tiggy likes, I love the smart but casual look whereas Tiggy will opt for anything with sparkle. I like clean lines, non-fuss, minimum effort styling while still looking stylish, and again Tiggy will opt for anything with sparkle and the more sparkle the better! Although I have found during this time, I have worn far more dresses than I usually would which is something I’ve loved as was always one to throw on jeans ready to race out of a morning. Something I hope to carry forward is to remember that I enjoy wearing a dress and it doesn’t always have to be jeans when you’re a mum.
My top tips for spending times indoors is to keep busy. I find if I’m “idle” my mind wanders to the troubles of the world and so by keeping busy, my mind occupied, I find it’s a far more positive experience. Days can be long at home with children so we break our days up into manageable sections as it were, the hope is to keep some sense of routine and “normality” so time to sit and eat as a family, time to complete school work as one day they’ll head back to school and so to me it’s important to keep them used to sitting and doing some school work – even if only colouring or learning shapes as Tiggy’s being doing this week.
I try to keep this time as fun as possible and the key I’ve found is knowing when to stop when we’ve all had enough. I’ve learnt that I have far more patience than I ever imagined and that I’m actually really enjoying the slower pace to our days and hope to carry that forward when this period in time ends, to remember the simple things that I’ve enjoyed, and that family time for us has been absolutely invaluable in what is ordinarily a very busy family life.
