BeHappyMum | Games To Play With Kids In The Morning While Lying In

Holidays, early weekend’s morning and kids are up already? No-no-no-no, of course getting up is not your plan. You can still win 30 minutes of lying-in with these games to play with kids and resting in your bed if you’re not a fan of giving them an iPad.

1. Back Drawings

Let them ‘draw’ with their fingers on your back, while you are trying to guess what shape, number or letter they’ve outlined. Make sure they don’t take it too far and decide to bring a pen into action!

2. Bed City

Let them make a town out of your bed sheets: your body could be ‘a mountain’ with roads and routes so that they can take a toy car or a small toy doll to ‘walk’ or ‘drive’ along the roads.

They better ‘drive’ around your body rather than upon it, though.

This hilarious gift for dads, The Car Play Mat Shirt, is also perfect for festive weeks when kids are not aware of “holiday” timeclock.

3. Rhyme challenge

One of the most brilliant games to play with kids when you’re travelling, waiting in the queue or just walking in the park with your child. Let them make a rhyme! You say the first word – they make up a rhyme for it. If your child is older, you could even try making poetry by rhyming the end words of longer phrases. All you need is to say “Star” and it might come out a “Car”, “Cake” – “Shake”, “Sun” – “Fun”, “Candle” – “Handle”…

4. Measuring

Let them measure your body by “walking” along your body with their fingers. They can measure their body as well to compare – it’s bound to take some time that you can relax and stretch in bed.

5. Day Planning

Give them your phone and open the Weather app. Let them see the weather and suggest what kind of outdoor (or indoor only if it’s heavy rain) they think is good to do in this kind of weather. If next time you want to lie in a little longer, then add more locations into the app to intrigue your kids by watching watch the weather changes in places like Johannesburg, Melbourne, Rio de Janeiro, Reykjavik.

6. Funny Reading

Ask them to bring paper and a pen and ask them to write down random words (the longer the better) like monopoly, stairs, camouflage and ask them to write and (read!) it downwards. It will take some time but it will be so much fun!

7. Spy Game

If they bring over any of their toys, ask them to ‘hide’ them in certain places around the house, which you describe with careful detail. Something like “and now put your toy car on the right side of the book shelf in the study room”. Then “this toy goes on the left side of the right foot of the sofa”.

8. Word Challenge

If they are old enough for making new words then ask them to write down a long word, like “expedition” or “articulation”, and make as many other words out of letters as possible. This game can also be used to check and improve their spelling, as well as give you some lie-in time.

9. Criminology

While this game goes on, you can even go to sleep, and pretend to be a corpse. Slightly cynical, we know, but what wouldn’t you do for an extra half an hour of sleep? Let your kid attend to you, measure your pulse, heart rate and body temperature. You’ll find it just as fun as they do.

10. Clothes Challenge

Let them put socks on your feet. Easy task, you say? Relax your feet and let them pull socks onto you with no help. We assure you, it is harder than it looks and it will give you some precious time.

11. Funny Storytelling

Give them the beginning of the story and suggest to make up the next. These could either be a word each, a sentence each or even longer paragraphs, until the story is complete.

12. Papier Mache

One of those silly but fun games to play with kids when you lie flat on a bed or floor. Ask them to bring their clothes and cover your body with clothes as if it is a papier mache.

13. Right Or Wrong

This is a way great opportunity for some silly laughter! Make a statement and ask your children to confirm whether the statement is right or wrong. Let’s start: The Sky is Green. “NO!” The trees are green. “Yes!”. Cars can fly. “No!” It’s also a good idea to encourage and help your kids analyse the attributes of the objects. “Hair is liquid” – anyone disagree?

14. Guess Cartoons Or Characters

Elsa from Disney? Scooby Doo? How much do your children love cartoons and their characters?! One person challenges the other to guess who it is – the cat who’s always chasing the mouse but finds himself in awful situations. Who is a big smelly pig helping a lion cub to grow up after he’s left alone in jungle? If they are struggling, you can give more clues or offer your kids to ask the questions. Practicing asking questions is not as easy as it sounds for young children, so encouragement with this learning games develops great skills.

15. Name The Words

Give them a topic, like “words starting with T” or “names of things that are blue “ and see how many they can name. You can even let them keep a tally score and see on what topic they could come up with most words!