Wednesday: Mid-Week Ramblings—The Art of Play-dates Part 1

Wednesday: Mid Week Ramblings
The Art of Play-dates

I am not quite sure if I have mastered the art of play-dates, but I certainly have learned a few things. Every child I have nannied and the children of my own, all have a different style.

My oldest daughter (23 months), gets overwhelmed very easily, and it still learning the concept of sharing.
I have found that she does the best when she is with older kids, or boys her own age. She does better if we plan activities like games, coloring, cooking. For the time being, we are staying away from toys, she has this extreme attachment to toys and for the safety of everyone we are going to try to stay away from that, and try again later. Picking up a friend to go to a museum works the best by far. I actually think her favorite thing to do is just get to sit next to her friend in the car and go eat lunch together.

Some of the wonderful children I nannied like to be on their own! They don’t want me peeking over their shoulders, involve myself in their games. They would just like me to supply them with some fun things and let them be! Having a friend over and they forget you are around!

Others like me to be in the group, they need help coming up with things to do and like for me to get them started. Board games, crafts, making up stories, playing hide and seek. They seem to have more fun if I am playing with them, and usually after awhile I sneak away so they can learn to entertain themselves.

Some kids just seem not to even notice the other kid is there! They each play in their respective places with their allotted toys and don’t even glance over.

When the kids are old enough some of them like to plan the play-date. Here were some of their favorites:

-Pretend Party Play Date
Color invitations to the most extravagant, junk food filled, Dora attending party
Set up the plastic Princess tea party at the big adult dining room table
Sit barbies and dollies around the table
Get dressed in the fanciest dress up you can find

Cooking Play Date
Get out your favorite kids cookbook
Go shopping, give each child their own list and cart to shop
Go home and cook!

Library Play Date
Turn one of the rooms in your home into a library
Make pretend library cards
Hang string from one side of room to another and hang books on
Have someone be the librarian
Check out books with stamp (no ink allowed!)
Make sure you read the book before together before you check out another

Comment on some of  your children’s favorite play-dates!!

Tags: Wednesday: Mid Week Ramblings, activities, cooking, library, mid week ramblins, playdates, pretend, wednesday

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