7-Year-Olds
Activities for 7-year-olds.
Seven is the age of getting into things: collecting, sorting, organising, making a club, keeping a notebook, becoming briefly and intensely expert in one subject.
Activities can have several steps and a genuine difficulty to them. Simplifying too far is the usual mistake — a seven-year-old given something obviously easy will say so.
This is also a good age for making things for other people: cards, presents, a game to teach a younger sibling.
Activities
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Draw Round Their Hand and Keep It
One sheet, once a year: their hand, their height, and three things they can do now that they could not last year.
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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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Five Ways to Decorate an Egg With No Dye
Stickers, felt tips, wool, tissue paper and tape. All five work on a hard-boiled egg and none of them stain anything.
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The Shape of a Rainy Day
A whole day indoors needs a shape, not a list. Energy first, then absorbing, then quiet, then food — repeated.
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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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A Masking Tape Obstacle Course
One roll of tape turns a hallway into a course to balance, jump and crawl along. Works in a flat, upstairs, in the rain.
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Getting the Energy Out in a Small Room
Four ways to wear a child out indoors without breaking anything or annoying the neighbours downstairs.
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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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Scooping Out a Pumpkin
The insides are the best part. Scooping is a proper sensory activity, and the washed seeds do a week of counting afterwards.
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Winter Play When It Is Too Cold to Go Out
Ice, torches, dens and paper snowflakes. The four things that reliably fill a dark afternoon.
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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.