well, we have lincoln logs-so we could try kate Moss…
Write a book together and illustrate it.
Not as hard as it sounds. Just start making up any inane story and ask the little ones what happens next. Then go on from there. If they get stuck suggest something to contine the story. In fact, the fun is in doing it together.
Write it down as your doing this in short simple sentances, a few on the bottom of each page. Then go back and talk about the story with the kids and draw/color the pictures.
Tons of fun and even a short story can take an hour to finish with the drawing and coloring
If you have any balloons on hand, blow one up and give everyone in the house a wooden spoon (or similar implement). Play the game where everyone can bat the balloon as hard as s/he wants, but the balloon must NEVER touch the ground or any furniture. The person closest to the ballon when it does either one of those things gets a point (and points are bad, obviously).
Got a ping-pong ball? Station you and your kids around the table and have everyone blow on the ball. The goal is for you to push the ball off the table on someone else’s side, without having it fall off on your side. No hands allowed. Be careful to take breaks every now and then-- it’s been known to cause fainting (but it’s fun!).
Make Peanut Butter Playdough. Play with it and eat it. It’s good stuff.
Have everyone try to draw genuine portraits of the others. No joke elements allowed-- make it serious. Then try caricatures, if they can take it as well as they can dish it.
I don’t know how old your young’un is, but I loved this when I was a little one: finger-paint using Jello instant pudding. As a 5-year-old, I thought this was the most decadent, incredible thing ever.
Lincoln logs are great!!! I’ll second the deck of cards and a wide variety of games, but I’m from a family of rather vicious card players. I’ll also second salt dough modelling too. Have you got yarn and some sticks? You could try making ojos de dios, God’s eyes.
Good luck!
CJ
How old is he?
Make Play-Dough.
2 cups flour
1 cup salt
4 teaspoons cream of tartar
2 cups water
2 tablespoons oil
few drops of food coloring
Mix dry stuff together with a fork in a large saucepan, then add water and oil and food coloring and over medium-high heat, stir constantly till it comes together in a sticky mass. Lower the heat if it seems too hot. It only takes a few minutes.
Dump it in a gallon-size Ziploc bag and knead it. Have fun. It keeps for weeks if you keep it tightly covered.
Give him some boxes of various sizes (shoe boxes, tissue boxes, shirt boxes, leftover boxes from Christmas, whatever) and some construction paper and markers and glue sticks and have him build a tower or a city or something for Hot Wheels or Matchbox cars.
Or is he too old for those?