Celebrate Te Rā o Ngā Tamariki | Children’s Day at home

Play Chasing Pirates

What you’ll need

Some energy to burn, especially on a rainy day, a large area and two or more people.

How to play ‘Chasing Pirates’
Whatever the weather, get outside for some pirate fun!

Choose who will be the pirates (often the kids) and who will be the crocodiles.
Give the pirates three seconds to run away… screaming!
Then the crocodiles can chase, catch them and gobble them up before letting them go and beginning again.
Make a recycled robot
What you’ll need
Scissors, glue, tape, decorations and clean recycled goodies like small boxes, plastic milk bottles, paper towel rolls and milk bottle tops.

Recycled robot

Decide how you’ll put your robot together. What part will be the body? What could you use for the arms and legs?
Use glue and tape to hold your robot together.
Bring your robot to life by adding eyes, a mouth, hair and other details like buttons, shoes and clothes.
Give your robot a name and find it a special place to sit.
Make Chalk Paint
What you’ll need
1 cup of cornflour, 1 cup of water, a muffin tin, food colouring and paintbrushes.

How to make chalk paint

Mix the cornflour and water together the split the mixture among your muffin cups.
Add a few drops of different food colouring to each cup.

Use your paint brushes to decorate your driveway or footpath.
You could draw each other, draw some blue puddles to ‘jump in’ or even draw

the letters of your name.
Treasure Hunt
What you’ll need

Things to hide (such as stickers, special treats or ‘I love you’ notes), and some helpful clues.

Quick hunt

Take turns hiding things and giving clues.

When the person goes the wrong way say “cold, colder”…
When they go the right way say “warm, warmer, very very hot!”
Create a special hunt
Hide all your things then give the hunters their first hand-drawn (or written) clue.
This clue will lead to the first treat and the next clue until all treats are found.
Extra for experts
Have a night time hunt with torches or have two teams racing to find what you’ve hidden.

Dance Party

What you’ll need
Music (if you’re stuck on what to play check out YouTube for some good ideas), an open area and a dance buddy or two.

How to host your dance party
Hosting a dance party is easy.

All you need to do is put on some good music, invite your friends and family and break

out your best dance moves. When you’re choosing your songs to dance to make sure you give everyone a chance to pick their favourite songs!

Extra for experts
Once you’ve had some fun dancing why not challenge your friends and family to a dance battle! You could even create a cool trophy for the person who dances the best!

Movie Night

What you’ll need
A good movie, some yummy snacks, a few pillows and your friends and family.

How to host a movie night
Hosting a movie night can be really simple or you can choose to go all out and make it something extra special!

The most important thing to remember is to pick a movie that everyone wants to watch ahead of time and bring some yummy snacks to eat.

Extra for experts
Make some movie tickets and assign seating for you and your family.

Backyard Camping

What you’ll need
A tent, some pillows, a sleeping bag and a torch.

How to set up your backyard camping
Camping is super fun but it’s not always easy to go away on a camping trip. What not set up a fun camping adventure for the family in your own backyard?

All you need to do is set up the tent before it gets dark, bring out your

sleeping bags and pillows and think of some cool activities you might like to do while you’re out. Some ideas could include watching the stars together or making shadow figures with your torches.

Just don’t forget to plan an easy way to get back inside if anyone needs the bathroom in the middle of the night!

Extra for your experts
If you don’t feel like camping outside, or you don’t have the space, why not try building a fort inside.

All you need are some blankets, some chairs or tables to hold your blankets up and some pillows to make the inside of your fort super comfy.

More ideas?!

https://whanau.skip.org.nz/having-fun/tiny-adventures/

https://www.childrensday.org.nz/

https://www.facebook.com/CAPF.ORG.NZ