Piggyback rides and races are always a sure favorite with kids!

Blowing Bubbles
KIDFUN activities can usually be organized with what is at hand. But if you know ahead of time you are going to have a group of children to entertain, treat them and you by going to the variety store and buying bubbles. A single jar of bubbles holds magic and laughter and happiness. Soap Saver  An excited child with a full bottle of bubbles is at risk for spilling. Open each bottle and pour half into a pitcher. That way, if someone spills, all is not lost; when the children are done, you can refill the bottles for another day. Bubbles are an especially good way to entertain a group of children of different ages. Even teenagers can have fun with a jar of bubbles. All sizes of bubbles can be blown, depending on the blowing instrument. Plastic straws dipped into bubble solution make tiny bubbles. Plastic container lids with a center hole cut out make larger bubbles, and pipe cleaners bent into circles make still larger bubbles. When the instrument gets too large for the bubble jar, pour bubbles onto a cookie sheet and rest the instrument on the sheet. Retrieve it with tongs and shake it gently to see how humongous a bubble you can create.

Carnival Time
With a little bit of advance organization, you can create a great deal of fun by organizing a carnival, either indoors or out. You might plan a bean bag toss, paper cup pyramid targets, some sort of balancing game, and magnetic fish (see “Go Fishing”). One-leg races, tug-of-war, and whatever else you and your child can think of will round out the carnival activities. Use peanuts, M&M’s, and pennies for prizes. Give out prizes just for trying and increase the same prize for winners, and supply paper bags to store the loot. Hot Day Carnival   In the heat of summer make your carnival a cool-off activity by adding water to each activity. Bean bags can be tossed into water buckets and paper cups knocked down by water pistols or a spray bottle. Use cups with water for balancing acts and play “Go Fishing” in the wading pool. Serve popsicles instead of ice cream.

Come as a Star
Invite the child to come to the party dressed as their favorite star. You can keep it general or theme-oriented like this- Come as a Rock Star, as a Movie Star, Come as a TV Star, or Come as a Sports Star. Plan the party around the theme with table decorations, posters, video movies for entertainment, music and games. One activity could be a Parade of Stars as they march around the party to music. You may want to take snapshots of each “star” as a favor placed in a homemade frame with a gold star border. An alternative is to provide a box with assorted materials for costumes so they can become a star at the party-capes, hats, feathers, and whatever odds and ends you have can be the props. While the children are working on their costumes, you can help them with makeup.

Dancing Animals
Play various kinds of music- classical, pop, rock, whatever you like- for the children to dance and to encourage them to move rhythmically with the music. Suggest they pretend to be different animals dancing to the music. They can be waddling ducks, lumbering elephants, creeping cats, running mice, stalking tigers, and frisky dogs.

Fashion Show
Of course, we are opposed to gender stereotyping. Of course, girls should play with trucks and basketballs and boys, with pots and sewing stuff. But experience suggests that dressing up has special appeal for little girls. Fill a box with old clothes. Put in high heels and scarves of every color. Don’t forget robes and shirts, hat, ties, jackets and purses. Let each child concoct an elegant–or avant garde– outfit of her choosing. It helps to have a “fashion assistant” for tying bows and stepping into high heels. You might want to provide a bit of make-up assistance too. Then have a fashion show, letting each child float down the runway to some descriptive comment.

Have a Parade!
Kids love a parade! Spend some time letting the kids prepare. First they will need music instruments for the parade marchers. Every child can work on making a drum (see our Shake, Rattle and Roll Funpack). Have some bells, pot lids and whistles ready for when the parade is about to begin. Work on banners or flags to carry in the parade and paper hats, which the kids can also make. Lengths of fabric or scarves tied to a ruler make good parade waving gear. It will help to have some marching music on hand, but it might be fun for the kids to work on their own marching music to start off with. How about Yankee Doodle Dandy or You’re a grand Old Flag?

Hoopdedo
Hula hoops are a great invention. They affirm the power of simplicity. Besides learning to make them spin around your waist, they are great for all kinds of target games. Put one on the ground, draw circles inside like a target with a number in each. Toss balls for points. Or jump in and out of it. Or spin it around on your arm. Our favorite hula hoop thing to do is to tie the hoop so it hangs from a branch of a tree. Then stand back and toss a ball through it. Ping pong balls and foam balls are safest, but tennis balls and small beach balls work, too, as do balloons.

Humanitree
Turn your houseful of children into trees. Help them think what parts of their bodies match up with parts of trees. Feet can be roots, their body the trunk, arms branches, and fingers the leaves. You be the weather elements, and have the children react. You can be the wind and the sun and the rain. And from time to time you can pretend to be a lumberman with an ax to chop down a tree. When you call out “Timber!” the tree before you must fall.

Itchy Fishy
Have a group of kids form a circle and hold up a double, queen or king sheet. As the group holds the sheet waist high, they shake it slightly to make ripples that resemble waves. Select one child to crawl under the sheet and tickle another child at the ankle. The sheet holders have only one clue as to which direction the itchy fish is headed–his fin. While the fish is swimming in the water, he holds up one finger, sliding it along the sheet. When the fish tickles you, it is your turn to become the fish, put up your fin, and set up under the water for your own prey to tickle.

Junk Art
Save your own junk: paper towel and toilet paper rolls, bits of wood, anything glittery, foam curls (packing material), popsicle sticks, or whatever else you can think of. Stick it all in a box so that one day when your child and his friends say, “What can we do?” you can pull out the box and answer “Make me some fabulous, interesting work of art.” With older children, you might want to save bigger junk: broken chairs, construction stuff, etc. Anything that is a SAFE throwaway.

Make a Movie
When your kids start outgrowing bean bags and wading pools, organize a make-a-movie party if you can get a video tape camera with sound. Depending on the number of children, divide them into groups of four to six and charge each group with developing a script and assigning parts for the upcoming “shoot”. Have lots of props on hand: old hats, long scarves or fabric, bits of old Halloween costumes, and stuffed animals. Brooms or mops may also come in handy. Allow fifteen or twenty minutes to prepare. Then have each group perform for the others while you videotape the show. Over dessert, play back the films. (And if you don’t have a camera, just forget the video aspects and call it theater.)
Commercial Adaptation   A shorter, more focused version of this is to give each group a household product and let them make a commercial.

Make a Mummy
This is fun for two slightly older kids or a group of kids paired into twos or threes. The object is to turn one child in each group into a museum quality mummy by wrapping him, head to foot–with slits of course for eyes, nose and mouth–so nothing shows but his feet and his face. First one to prop up a fully wrapped mummy is the winner if more than one group is wrapping. The only equipment is a few roles of toilet paper.

Murder in the Dark
This Agatha Christie style of game can be intriguing for a group of five or more elementary school children. Print the words “Detective,” “Victim,” and “Murderer” on sheets of paper that are folded. Add the same size folded sheets with no words so that each person in the group can pick a sheet. The “detective” leaves the room, turning off the lights as she goes. All the characters mill around, and the “victim” quickly falls to the floor while the “murderer” gives no indication of the crime. The detective returns, turns on the lights, and with questions and observation of body language and facial expressions has five minutes to guess the murderer. Keep playing until each person has been the “detective” at least once.

Musical Chairs
This is such an old favorite that grandparents and even great-grandparents may remember playing it. Line up chairs in a row, alternating direction of the chairs. Use one less chair than there are children. Beat a drum or play a record (or the piano) while the children walk around the row of chairs. When the music stops, they scramble to sit down. The child who doesn’t manage to land on a chair is out. Remove a chair until just one child is left. Vary the time you play the music. As more children are out, you may want to speed up the game.

Nursery Rhyme Characters
Sing or recite several nursery rhymes. Then help the children dramatize their favorites. Each child whispers to you which rhyme he likes. Then you and he act out this rhyme while the other children try to guess which it is. Older children can be given a set of props and asked to act out a favorite fairy tale or rhyme on their own.

Pass the Ball
You and the children sit on the floor in a circle with your legs spread wide apart. Hand one of the children a large ball. She rolls it across the floor directly into the legs of another child. That child rolls it to another, and so on. Tell the children the game is to keep the ball in constant motion.

People Letters
If it is time for active play, try people letters. Print some capital letter with straight lines (T, E, A, M, N, W) on sheets of paper, one to a sheet. Have all the children lie down on the floor. Pick one child to select a letter. She must then arrange the children to form that letter.

Pizza Party
Food is a man ingredient in party fun, so make it the center of the party. Invite your child’s friends to a pizza party, a pancake brunch, a hotdog barbecue, or a sundae special. Regardless of the main course, the toppings are the fun. Provide an array of choices from which the kids can choose and let your guests be as creative and unconventional as their stomachs desire. Let your daughter suggest toppings she would like.

Sack Hop
Traditionally, this activity requires a potato sack–but you can substitute with old pillow cases. With a group of kids, arrange relay races. With a smaller group, make the game a hop or walk from one point to another before a certain amount of time runs out. Then try it hopping with only one foot in the sack.
Variation – if hopping gets too easy but your kids like these kinds of movement games, let them try three-legged walking. Two kids stand next to each other, each facing the same direction, and you tie their inside legs together. Then they must walk the distance on these three legs.

Storytelling
Just as with a single child, storytelling can absorb a group. There are many things you can do. You can simply read a fascinating story to children, sharing the pictures as you go. You can read a story and have the children provide sound effects. You can act out a written or made-up story, leading the entire group on a trek through the jungle or an adventure in discovering the Wild West, or you can, with younger children, engage them in story songs.

Printed with permission from The KIDFUN® Activity Book
by Sharla Feldscher and Susan Lieberman
HarperCollins Publishers 1995