Ideas for things to do with 6 year old girl and 8 year old boy?

Question

I babysit for a 6 year old girl and an 8 year old boy who are both generally well behaved. The thing is, their parents are in this rotational social gathering group that meets at their house every few weeks (the others it's elsewhere). When the parents are away, the kids usually work well with me and are pretty obedient, but when the parents are home, they completely defy my authority. What I need to know is things that I can do to keep them occupied so that they won't try to run to their parents. I've tried a lot, but neither of them are very emotionally stable and the younger one is quite a bit smarter, so it's hard to get anything that requires a lot of brain power since he's bound to get jealous. I'm not allowed to take them outside, bake, put on the TV, or anything very loud. I'd be super grateful for some ideas that will keep me from pulling ALL my hair out. =P

Answer 1

Wow, those kids sound like a handful! Anyway, try bringing a bunch of really cool art-project materials like fabric scraps, lace, glitter, sequins, pom-poms, etc. Give each child a piece of posterboard and tell them that they're going to make their very own All About Me collage. If the parents will let you, get some of their baby pictures to incorporate into the collage. Kids that age tend to get lost in their creations when they have a wide variety of materials to play with. You could also bring some extra-fun things like scissors that cut funky edges on paper, puffy pens, stickers, and rubber stamps. Just make sure you do the collage creation on a protected surface, like a table covered with newspapers, because kids can get really messy doing things like that. Bonus: at the end of the evening, the kids have a lovely keepsake for their parents to cherish.

Answer 2

First of all, get the parents' cooperation. Have them make it clear to the kids that when you are in charge, you are in CHARGE and running to the parents will get them NOTHING.
Once that is cleared up, look for areas of interest in their lives. Is the little girl a 'girly' girl who likes to dress up? Take some old 'fancy' clothes with you for her to don and then let her 'entertain' you with a song or dance.
The younger 'smart' one should be happy to create something from a box of 'odds and ends'.....screws, bolts, nuts, wire,......any such thing that won't hurt him.....and a few simple tools. Challenge him to make a working 'robot'.
Or if these are not their areas of interest, perhaps some art activities or creative children's crafts might be in order.
The idea is to help them be creative with their time and come away with something to show for their efforts.

Answer 3

what you could try to do is to prepare yourself and the kids for the time ahead when the parent's are going to meet others.

inculcate the parents time to the kids and kids time too.

ten or fifteen minutes before the parents time, tell the kids its kids time. bring them to a room where they will not be able to see what their parents are going to do and engross them in games that will require their attention. like clay playing, drawing, or painting.

or better yet have a mini program with them. be the host. the first number in our program is the boy, ask him what he wants to do. be it sing, dance, recite a poem, what have you. then give a candy or token to reward the number of the boy. then the next number in the program is the girl. same sequence. you'll run out of children songs this way. and in no time the kids and parents time are up.

then they can go back to their parents to play.

hope this helps. sure worked with my eight siblings when they were still kids. (",)

Answer 4

Board Games,Shadow puppets,make cool sock puppets and make a show.With the little girl,teach her how to dance.The boy,play with trucks or something.If they like school,the could do flash cards.Playing school would be fun(you can't be the teacher,they have more fun when they get to do it.)Excersising,ummm....rock paper scissors,teach em sign language(not bad ones!!)
All of this came from my mind,but this website might help http://familyfun.go.com/

Answer 5

i think the about me poster thing was a very good idea

Answer 6

-Drawing
-Hide an seek
-Playing Twister
-Let them watch cartoons

Answer 7

Teach them chess.