It’s been a month of not feeling great at our house. Nothing serious, just a rather miserable and long-lived virus making the rounds in our family (Lily, thankfully, seems to have been spared the experience). It has, however, gotten me thinking about ways to keep little ones as happy as possible when they feel anything but great. Here are a few quiet activities that have helped to distract from illness this month at our house:
- puzzles
- books (hooray for public libraries!)
- drawing
- coloring
- painting
- play dough
- sidewalk paint
- looking after baby dolls and stuffed animals
- building with blocks
- pattern blocks
- playing with fabric scraps
- playing “school”
I have resorted to television on occasion, but I try to stick to Signing Time DVDs (I did allow a handful of Bob the Builder and one or two Word World episodes). I watch with the kids so we can talk about what they see and to keep myself from using the television as a babysitter. Both my children and I have learned sign language vocabulary from Signing Time, and I learned about greywater purification systems from Bob the Builder. I even looked it up afterwards, and the description seemed reasonably accurate, at least according to Wikipedia…
How do you keep your young children happy when they don’t feel well?
