I have to watch my cousins for a few days. How do you entertain kids???? My cousins are EXTREMELY rambunctious and hyper! They will NOT shut up! They don't really like movies, so that won't work. Can you tell me ideas to entertain that won't make me lose ALL my energy????!! Please help me!
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My husband and I have our grandnieces & grandnephews over each summer for a backyard campout. They are usually here two days and one night. They are ages 4, 6, 7, and 9. They come from about 350 miles away, and when they get here, they have been sleeping in the car for a couple of hours, are really really really excited to see us, and are rambunctious! We try to keep them physically active for periods of time each morning and afternoon, and when we calm down for a while, we do things that are imaginative. All kids respond well to imaginative activities. It also uses their energy.
We go to the park to run some of that off, and if it's raining, we go to the community center to run some of that off in the gym. Take a soccer ball and a basket ball and you don't even need any rules--just play.
Then we have lunch or dinner, put up the tent, which keeps them busy with their individual helping tasks, and we have lots of fun games to play that allow some rambunctiousness, including Twister, Operation, Mousetrap, Perfection, and we also play cards (War, and we bet pennies per hand, and we say the pennies are worth $1 million each, which really gets the kids excited, and keeps them focussed and allows them to jump up and shout and laugh and wears off the energy.)
We also usually have a sing-along the evening of the first day they are here. You can do this around a real campfire, like we have done, or you can do it around a play campfire in the dark family room. The best way I can think of to get hyper kids to focus is to give them a task, like: Let's twist these newspapers into pretend logs and build a campfire! Maybe someone needs to draw and color and cut out (with round plastic scissors) some pretend FLAMES to put in there, too! Then get cushions and sing or sing and act out the songs. My husband plays acoustic guitar, so we have him to strum along. We are plenty tired when the kids finally leave, but we pace things so that they're tired, too, and there was plenty of sleep time, but also plenty of physical and emotional activity.
Sounds like you're on the right track by gathering ideas for activities, and be sure to have a few more than you think you need, and have them organized so you wind down (like with the campfire) so they are relaxed by bedtime. Hope that helps.
find a good playground or open field...
bring a ball, a frisbee, etc....
.....have a dance competition and play some good jams!
get some exercise videos!
find a track to run around (most schools have these)
or ride bikes around.
play jump rope....
do whatever you can to physically wear them out....
and don't let them eat any candy!!!
The last thing you need is a sugar high on top of their natural high!!!!
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