6-Year-Olds
Activities for 6-year-olds.
Six wants to be competent. Activities that build a visible skill — a trick, a craft technique, a game they can beat you at — hold much longer than novelty.
Projects can now stretch across two sittings, which opens up anything with a drying, setting or building stage. Instructions can be followed independently if they are written simply enough.
Fairness matters enormously at this age. Games with clear rules, and rules that apply to adults too, avoid most of the arguments.
Activities
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Spooky Shadow Puppets
Cut a bat and a cat from card, tape them to straws, and put on a show against the wall with a torch.
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Real Kitchen Jobs a Small Child Can Actually Do
Washing, tearing, stirring and sprinkling. Eight jobs that are genuinely useful on a busy cooking day.
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A Post Box for Kind Notes
A cereal box with a slot cut in it. Everyone posts a note about somebody else, and you read them out at dinner.
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Grow Hair on an Eggshell
Half an eggshell, a face drawn on, cotton wool and cress seeds. In a week it has green hair you can eat.
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What to Actually Put in the Travel Bag
Several small things, handed out one at a time. That single rule matters more than anything you put in it.
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Making a Playdate Go Well
Put the precious toys away first, have one activity that needs two people, and finish while it is still going well.
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Tidying Up Without the Battle
"Tidy up" is an impossible instruction. "Put the blocks in the blue box" is a job a three-year-old can finish.
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The Hour After School Is Always the Hardest
A child who held it together all day falls apart the moment they see you. Food first, questions much later.
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The Very Loud Hiccup
A read-aloud story with a noise in it that everybody has to make. Loud, silly, and not for bedtime.
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The Red Boots
A story for a child who is starting to read some of it themselves. Short words, short lines, and a puddle.
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Make Up a Story With Three Things
A character, a place, and something going wrong. That is enough for almost any child to be away.
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Five Games for the Wait Before the Food
No bag, no crayons, nothing to drop on the floor. Five games that need only the two of you and a table.
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A Quiet Box for the Difficult Hour
One box, five or six calm things, brought out only when everything is falling apart. It works because it is rare.
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Collect the Leaves, Then Sort Them
A bag, a walk, and a kitchen table. The collecting is half of it and the sorting is the other half.
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A Thankful Tree
A branch in a jar and a paper leaf each day. Small, slow, and it ends up being the thing everyone reads at the table.
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An Egg Hunt That Works for Every Age
The same hunt, three difficulty levels, so a two-year-old and a seven-year-old can play together without either being bored.
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Noisy Shakers and a Jar of Good Things
One loud activity and one quiet one. Make shakers for the countdown, and a jar to look back at next year.
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Printing Your Own Wrapping Paper
A halved potato, a shape cut into it, and a roll of plain paper. It looks far better than it has any right to.