Sometimes when raising children alone, especially if you have an only child, you may not always feel like a family or you just may feel like you’ve ran out of creative ideas to keep the children active and/or entertained. Here are some great indoor ideas when it’s raining outside and and can also be great exercises for family bonding…

Family capsule

In 10-15 years time, our day-to-day living today will be a distant memory or maybe even forgotten. Have a look around your home and find things that are important to you and represent you as a family, you could include photos, poems, old favourite toys, painted pictures, old dog collar or pet blanket, perhaps today’s newspaper, you could write up descriptions of each other. DVD’s/CD’s may not be a good idea, who knows what or how we will be listening to music in the future, but you could pop in the sleeve of favourite albums.

Collect everything together and put it in a Tupperware box and write the date that it is not allowed to be opened before on the lid! Your choice whether it be 10,15 or 20 years! If you have a garden and think you will be in the same place in 10 years time you can bury it in a special place. If you don’t have a garden pop it in the loft or at the back of a cupboard, somewhere that you won’t think to revisit.

This activity may only take an hour or so, or it could be a family project over a week, but sometime in the future, when the children have grown up and left home (and probably forgotten all about it!) you can bring everyone together and open it. Maybe save it for a special occasion. It is sure to bring warm memories.

On this day

Put your child’s picture in the middle of a piece of paper, then research all the things that happened on the day they were born. Get them to help, you can research in the library, on the internet, ask family members etc.

Surround the picture with all the clippings and stories for that day that you have collected; your child could draw pictures representing news stories, you could write quotes, draw pictures etc. If it is hard to find anything of interest for that day, perhaps do month or year. You can then frame your collage and it will be a lovely keepsake for your child/children.

Family collage

Find a big piece of paper and stick to it all your family’s favourite things, baked beans label? KFC serviette? favourite crisp packets? sweet wrappers. If you play board games then a completed games score sheet, favourite family jokes written on scraps of paper, draw a picture of each other, add tickets to an event you have been to together. Get the children to use their imagination! When you have finished put it in a frame and put it on your wall, for all to see who you are as a family!

Act out a family story with sock puppets

Two activities in one! Get some old socks and create some puppets, buttons or stickers for eyes, then add any other facial features necessary, using stickers or material and glue! Pop your hand in the sock and make them talk!

Get the children to create a family story using the different sock puppets, it could be the birth of a new sibling, or a marriage of a cousin. Let them decide, you might be surprised what they come up with, it might also make a good talking point!