Keep the kids occupied at holiday parties
Make fun-filled activities quickly on the computer
By Jane Doucet
Whether you’re throwing a holiday party or attending one with your children, you can use these computer-based ideas to save time — and possibly your sanity — during this hectic holiday season. Pack a bag with these fun activities to take to a party. Or, if you are the hostess, set up an activities area where children can play away from the celebration.
Bind a colouring book
Create some personalized holiday crafts for each of your children to work on. Visit Christmas-Activities.com, where you can print a variety of colouring pages, including carollers, a wreath, an angel, Santa on the chimney and a snowman. The site also provides instructions on how to make holiday crafts such as candy-cane reindeer, chocolate parcels and painted candles.
Fashion a craft book
At DLTK’s Holiday Crafts and Activities there are online craft ideas, games, colouring pages, recipes, greeting cards and labels for Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanza. Lorraine Pittman, a mother of three in Wellington, N.S., regularly uses that site and its sister sites to help her two sons and daughter make greeting cards and crafts for special occasions. “I always check the Internet first when I’m looking for creative things to do because it’s so convenient,” she says. In the past, Pittman has brought activities with her to events where there is waiting involved, such as the time just before Christmas mass.
Personalize a puzzle
“At Puzzlemaker.com, kids can make cool holiday-themed puzzles and exchange them with friends,” says Ann Douglas, a parenting expert and author in Peterborough, Ont. The site, which is part of the Discovery Channel School, offers something for children of all ages such as crosswords, cryptograms, word searches and mazes.
To jazz up creations, click on Clip Art Gallery to view a selection of online designs. It’s important to have a balance of educational and fun activities because the kids are going to have so much excitement that you’ll need to give them something to settle them down, says Douglas.
Arrange an activities area
Have a tech-savvy teenager or adult monitor a computer station for the kids where they can try the following activities.
Set up a snazzy T-shirt station. Open Word, select a Clip Art image or one of your own image files, and add your own words. Then slip a piece of iron-on transfer paper into the printer and print the page. The final steps: iron the transfer onto a plain T-shirt and peel it off. It’s that simple. (Have parental supervision, of course.)
Write to Santa online. Canada Post’s web site has a section called Santa’s Corner where kids can get Santa’s address to mail him a letter the old-fashioned way or send him an e-mail. (They’ll even get a response.) This site also provides online holiday games, trivia and activities: kids can make their own dancing Santa puppet, decorate a Christmas tree and help Santa deliver presents.
Create a craft station. Have children make their own holiday ornaments, door decorations or garlands. Use a basic word-processing program to create holiday shapes such as a tree, star or snowman. Print the images onto heavy cardstock and use a fun hole puncher (some are shaped like stars) to create a hanging ornament. Have plenty of markers, stickers, ribbon and sparkles on hand for children to express their creativity.
Get into the games. Bring along some fun and educational games to play on the computer. Many games allow several players to play at once and can create a team-like spirit.
When divvying up computer time, Douglas has this advice: “With four kids in our house ranging in age from 6 to 15, we use a stove timer to block off turns into 20-minute segments. That way, everyone gets to work on the computer for the same amount of time without spending the whole night in front of the monitor.”
You could also have a sign-up sheet, she says; otherwise, you’re going to have everyone swarming one another.
