Keeping kids entertained indoors

Kids can be hard enough to keep entertained for hours on end at the best of times - sometimes it seems like school holidays last months, not weeks - but when you're stuck indoors together, your usual tricks might have run out already...

Kids can be hard enough to keep entertained for hours on end at the best of times - sometimes it seems like school holidays last months, not weeks - but when you're stuck indoors together, your usual tricks might have run out already. Here are a few more ideas for how to keep them entertained when leaving the house isn't an option.

Stage a play

This is a great way to begin introducing children to Shakespeare, or other writers who have had their work make it onto the stage. Give them a script to learn and create some homemade costumes and you've got yourself a few hours - or even days! - worth of activity to keep them occupied and learning.

Set up an indoor museum

This one takes a little preparation, but is well worth it. Print out photographs and descriptions of artefacts, animals or artwork (or whatever your little ones are enjoying or learning about at the moment) and set them up around the house for them to move from exhibit to exhibit. They could re-create the artwork themselves, write something about their favourite bit of the makeshift museum, or even prepare their own exhibition.

Science experiments you don't need to be a scientist for

There's nothing quite like a good science experiment to amaze kids - almost like a magic trick that's helping them learn. We love this list of 63 Easy Science Experiments you can try out at home - including food-based science experiments that help them understand how fatty and nutritional foods work differently and how taste buds work, a cunning trick to make popcorn kernels take on a life of their own or the pepper & soap trick, which will help them understand how soap and germs work.

How do you keep kids entertained indoors? Join our IQ Cards Facebook community and share your advice with other parents, we'd love to hear your tips.