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SE Ohio
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# Posted: 1 Dec 2010 19:09
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We recently spent a rainy Thanksgiving in our small cabin. We are off grid, but still the kids (ages 1, 4 and 7) were entertained by:
plastic and wooden blocks
coloring books
music
reading
plastic bowling ball and pins
Fortunately, it cleared up the next day and we could explore the outdoors. Any other ideas for indoor activities (with limited electricity)?
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RIjake
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# Posted: 1 Dec 2010 19:19
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I think you're on the right track so far!
My kids are a little older at 12 and 14 and I think that can make them harder to entertain!
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islandguy
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# Posted: 1 Dec 2010 19:50
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puzzles. easy one for the kids, jigsaw for the adults. My wife and I just bought one with a wildlife scene, and when done, will make a nice wall hanging for the cabin itself.
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hattie
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# Posted: 2 Dec 2010 12:04
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Board games are always fun (especially with a big bowl of popcorn on the side).
Try to remember the toys you really cherished as a kid and chances are your kids or grandkids will love them too. Tinker Toys, slinky, a stick horse for younger kids, stuff like that. You can still puchase many of these at toy stores specializing in retro toys.
I agree with islandguy about the puzzles. They are great. You can purchase special roll up things to build the puzzles on and when you aren't working on the puzzle, it just rolls up and stores out of the way for next time without destroying all your hard work. We did a beautiful puzzle of an Indian village with the kids (when they were actually kids *S*) and when it was done we glued it all together (you can puchase special puzzle glue), mounted it and framed it. We also put a note on the back with our names and the year we assembled it. *S* We didn't have a place for it when we moved up here, so one of my son's friends took it. He wanted it to hang in his livingroom. He thought it looked great.
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BadKarma
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# Posted: 2 Dec 2010 15:22
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When I was younger(?) give me a deck of cards and a chess set and I was set for a couple of weeks!!!!
Come to think of it, that'll work even today!!!!
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Gary O
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# Posted: 2 Dec 2010 20:26
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Geez, give my grandkids a string and a stick and they'll play for hours...
The imagination of a child is without parallel.
They don't need much.
Ours always want to hear a scary story upon bedtime, so I have to reach though the 61 years of mental dreck to find the good stuff, but the last one scared the bjesus out of 'em. Kinda spooked myself.
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SE Ohio
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# Posted: 4 Dec 2010 06:23
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Some other things the kids found entertaining- Viewmaster slides/projector. I found this stuff at a garage sale, and many slides go back to the 60's... Planet of the Apes, The Monkeys, Scooby Doo, etc. They couldn't get enough of this stuff!
Playdough was also a hit.
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Gary O
Member
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# Posted: 4 Dec 2010 10:23 - Edited by: Gary O
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If, for some reason, you are totaly unprepared, just a pencil and paper can suffice.
One child or parent can draw a shape, and the other needs to create something out of it.
I did this with my grand kids when we were stuck in the car for awhile...
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Gary O
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# Posted: 5 Dec 2010 20:39 - Edited by: Gary O
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Quoting: islandguy puzzles. easy one for the kids, jigsaw for the adults. My wife and I just bought one with a wildlife scene, and when done, will make a nice wall hanging for the cabin itself.
For sure
And getting ones with the theme you'd like for your cabin will inspire you to make it a wall hanging.
I took a few, and put 'em on some thin ply, then framed with cedar lath and used a 2 part pour over clear epoxy.
And, if the kids or grandkids had a hand in it from a rainy day, or an evening spent around the conversation table, their memories will be resurrected every time they visit the cabin.
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Gary O
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# Posted: 5 Dec 2010 20:42
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pix of framed puzzles.......
moose
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locomotive
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cat napping
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cabin on a stream
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Gary O
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# Posted: 6 Dec 2010 20:35
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Quoting: SE Ohio Playdough was also a hit.
and if you're stuck, unawares, you can make palydough; one cup flour, one cup salt, and 1/2 cup water
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bobrok
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# Posted: 6 Dec 2010 22:43
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An idea for somewhat older kids...tools. Teach them how to take something apart and see how it works. Build something like a birdhouse or a wooden tripod jack stand for a trailer; and no matter how crooked it comes out show it off and use it! My father in law was a craftsman and carpenter, albeit for his own personal use and satisfaction. He took my son under his guardianship at an early age (5,6,7 years old) and taught him how to use tools. I had him staging shingles for me up on a (somewhat flat) roof during an addition build I did in 1989 (he was 9 at the time). Today my son is 30 and has his own house. Three days after moving in he began gutting the kitchen by himself, opened a wall, reconfigured doorways, hung cabinets, layed a floor, etc, etc.
He has done more than I ever taught him. When I asked him how he learned all of this he simply said "from you and Poppi".
<smiling from ear to ear>
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Gary O
Member
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# Posted: 7 Dec 2010 08:48
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Quoting: bobrok and no matter how crooked it comes out show it off and use it
and, boy, do they ever take to it
When my daughter was around 5, I gave her some mill end 2xs and plywood along with a hammer, saw, and nails. I got busy with chores, and checked in on her an hour later.
She had a stack of tables all piled up. She was just finishing up her latest effort, and set it upright for examination. Then she sighed and tossed it on the pile with the rest of them..."crooked again."
It gave me quite a chuckle, and I use this story at work as an analogy when discussing proper production procedures.
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cabingal3
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# Posted: 8 Dec 2010 19:45
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well one time the little grandsons were body diving off of the ladder we had in the cabin onto the air mattress and managed to knock over the coleman lamp onto the floor.thats always exciting.Gar had the mind to grab it up quick.we all just stood looking on in terror as we saw a burn mark starting to form on the floor of our cabin.
the boys went with us and that time there was alot of grasshoppers every where.all i ever saw of them after i gave them a container to put the grasshoppers in..was them running back and forth on the meadow.then i was showing them how to catch chipmunks...but the rainy days.i think the only way we would survive is to play board games and eat popcorn and tell scarey stories.the boys are suckers for a scarey story.
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millstream
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# Posted: 22 Jul 2011 00:11
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Your local library could be invaluable. Last year we took my husband's 2 boys to the cabin, (they weren't happy with the lack of electricity!) in the evenings we would play board games, or ask if they wanted me to read a story. They were 14, and 10 yrs old, and first we just played games. After day 2 they were bored of the "board" games, so they opted for the story. I had chosen "My Side of the Mountain" thinking that it was appropriate for being out camping, and every night they ASKED for the book to be read, (we also made popped corn for the reading which seemed to help). But we hadn't finished the book before we left, so they asked for me to finish on the drive home. So consult your local children's section librarian, because I'm sure they'll have newer better suggestions than my repertoire. Also, if you have time before you go up there, and can research local plants, birds and animals, and make a treasure hunt style checklist of things they might encounter on a walk there, its always fun for kids to hold that sheet and hunt for things and then be able to cross them off. If you live close to where "local" items can be photographed, just take pictures from your camera and put into a word type doc you could print it out and laminate it, so it could be wiped clean and reused. After that, if you have boys, pellet guns, pellet guns and pellet guns. (and catching bugs, snakes, crawdads, etc) Good Luck!
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TomChum
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# Posted: 25 Aug 2011 13:50
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We did the same (read My Side of the Mountain ) , the girls were always looking ahead to the story in the evening. This lasted over several cabin visits. After reading it we rented the DVD and watched the movie on the computer screen. The girls voted that the book was way better than the movie. But it was fun to see the movie, since last time I saw it was~1969!
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Montanan
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# Posted: 25 Aug 2011 14:22
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Thanks for the tip on the book. My kids love it when I read them novels.
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