Are your kids struggling to keep them entertained? Here’s a few ideas for ways to encourage creative play in your kids that will inspire independence.
When you have two young kids with such a large age gap it is incredibly hard to keep them occupied all the time. They have different interests and both want my attention. Once Trevor started to become more active and I realized how much energy he had, I had to quickly find ways to encourage him to play on his own. Finding activities that were age appropriate and encouraged creative play wasn’t easy but I was able to narrow down some activities that my kids love. Here’s a few ideas of things that we’ve tried and have worked for us so far.
How do you encourage creative play in your kids? If you’re not sure where to start, here’s a few ideas.
16 Ways to Encourage Creative Play in Your Kids
- Create a new recipe
- Play school
- Take an imaginary vacation
- Write a story
- Let them dress themselves
- Bake a few sweets in the kitchen
- Conduct a science experiment
- Make some crafts
- Build a Lego tower
- Create a diorama
- Play with puppets
- Draw with sidewalk chalk
- Dive into a game of Simon Says
- Play musical instruments
- Put on a fashion show
- Build a sand castle
Kids love love love the chance to bake and be as hands on as possible. Things like baking, building sand castles, and playing dress up are perfect examples of creative activities.
Not only are they creative activities but they’re also fantastic learning opportunities. Of course creating a new recipe is something that needs a little parental oversight especially if your kids are younger but it’s so fun. My daughter loves getting creative in the kitchen. She’s helped me make these fluffy pancakes and easy indoor s’mores recipe with brownies. Allow your kids to let their creativity loose in the kitchen to create something they’ll love to eat.
T is a writer and she loves writing a good story. If she’s feeling bored and in the mood to write, we pick a crazy story prompt and she spends her afternoon writing a story.
Growing up school was my favorite thing to play. My kids love playing together now. This is the perfect activity if you have kids with an age gap. The older kids can play the teacher and younger kids are the students.
Some of our favorite places to visit are Washington DC, Gulf Shores, and California. When we’re home and not able to travel, our kids can go on an imaginary vacation. They pick a destination, “pack” their luggage with a few of their favorite travel essentials, and jet set into our living room for a fun vacation.
The best way to encourage creative play in your kids is to be an example. Limit their screen time and schedule time for them to express themselves. Show them what creative hobbies you have. My kids know that I love to craft and create DIYs. We’ve created these DIY bookmarks together. Don’t be afraid to play and be silly with them.
I love this idea! I’m all about getting the kids to be creative in their play. Video games and other tech has its place, but so does letting the imagination take them away.
I LOVE this!
I’m so worried about our young generation that’s growing up with tech in their hands 24/7. Cheers for getting kids out to play and along with using their bodies and minds actively!
Those are a lot of great ideas for younger kids. I will keep this list when I take care of my nephews and nieces. I think cooking with the kids is a fun way to spend time then eat what you made.
I think these are all such great ideas. My kids love doing a lot of these you have on your list. It’s great to get them doing something that doesn’t involve staring at a screen.
We encourages both our daughters to take up musical instruments starting in 4th grade. Now they can’t imagine their life without music!
These are great suggestions! So many of these can easily be done in our own homes, but we forget how fun they can be for little kids. Baking something new and fashion shows are my kids’ favorites!
This is really great! There are so many easy ways we can encourage creative play with our kids. Kids have a huge imagination and I think as adults, sometimes we accidentally remove that creative nature. When we use your ideas, we can get that creative side growing larger and maintained throughout the kid’s whole childhood which will be a helpful way to allow them to succeed as adults.
These are great ideas. Too many parents find it easier to allow the kids to just sit infront of a screen. Trust me I know there were times it was easier than sending them outside or engaging them in something.
I don’t have any kids yet, but I will use this advice with my nieces and nephews.