Activity for a playdate

When I was a child, I remember playing with my sister and my friends all by myself. My mother was around but not necessarily playing with us. Well, with boys it seems to be a little bit different. I don't know if that rule applies to all of them (probably not), but with my sons and, especially my oldest, they don't really know how to play alone. And this is also the case when they have friends around. I have to, more and less, be the game moderator. Otherwise, they get bored, they don't know what to do and they end up fighting.

Today we invited one of F's friend from school. And after taking out all (and I mean ALL) of F's and P's toys from the shelves and drawers, at some point they got stuck and didn't know what else to do. I could only hear F complaining to his friend "I invited you to a playdate, so you have to play with me" and then threatening him with a "I won't invite you anymore to my house, because you are not playing with me".

So here's the part when I had to intervene. We played "hide and seek", "Freeze" (I put some music, they had to dance and then freeze whenever I stopped the music) and we did some craft (this is what I'd like to share with you).

Last Sunday, when we went to the park, F picked up some dry leaves on the grass. And today, we used them to make some Art. My original idea, was to make stamps with the leaves, but F refused to do it that way. Instead, he preferred to simply paint the leaves and tape them to a paper. The result looks really nice. However, if you want to try my idea, you just need to paint one side of the leaves and then press them on a paper. Simple as that!