This car racing track from cardboard saved my sanity on a Sunday morning not so long ago. It’s easy to do, fun for the kids and it gave me the one hour I needed to get my coffee and wake myself up.
For me and my husband, some of the hardest times we have managing our kids are weekend mornings. Those days the kids wake up way before we would want them to and are full of energy and ready to play. Unfortunately we are still sleepy, trying to pull ourselves together – with the help of a coffee – and making the best out of it. That’s also how that day started …
It was a Sunday morning and we (the adults) were still sleeping. I don’t know when the kids woke up, but I remember hearing them -like in a dream- playing downstairs. They were making increasingly more noise as they were playing in the living room. So I knew that quiet play wouldn’t last. That’s why I decided to go down before they would get into a fight.
Like a disguised secret agent, in pajamas and with my hair in all directions, I sneaked into to the kitchen. The first mission: to make myself a coffee and have a sip from it before my cover is blown and they’ll notice that I am awake. So while waiting for my morning fuel to get ready, I was gazing over the kitchen window and enjoying the last moments of invisibility for the day.
DIIIINNNG! The coffee is done. My cover is blown anyway, so I step in the living room taking the first sip of my too hot coffee.
“Momy, Mommy! Elena is ruining everything we do!” both Victoria and Lukas turned to me complaining about their 2 year old sister. Elena, in her clumsy and stubborn toddler-ish way, was trying to be part of their game.
Elena loves to be involved in everything the bigger kids do. “Kikido” is her way of saying “me too” and it rolls of her tongue about a zillion times a day. There is nothing her older sister and brother can do that she doesn’t want to be part of. And why not – in her eyes she is as capable as they are and can do everything they do!
“Yes, I see that. But I’m sure she does not mean it, maybe she just wants to play with you,” was my first trial while I took my second sip of coffee.
“But we don’t want to play with her!” said Victoria.
“She ruins our game! … On purpose!” Lukas continues.
“I see that…Shall we try to play something else ” my non-inspired second try.
“NO!” Lukas and Victoria were screaming simultaneously.
At this point I wished I had a list of fun and easy to setup group activities for kids of mixed ages. Then I wouldn’t have to activate my sleeping brain so early in the morning. But I didn’t have such a list and I had to come up with something -the faster the better! So I took my third sip of coffee and gave it another shot, putting a little bit more enthusiasm in my own voice …
“What about making a slide for the toy cars and we do a race?”
“Oh YEAH” Lukas said, as anything with cars – specially when involving a race – can get him enthusiastic.
“How will we do that?” Victoria asked, being tempted by the race as well.
“Maybe we can use a big piece of cardboard and the living room table …” I continued.
“Oh YEAH” and Lukas was already off to the garage door to look for cardboard.
Of course Elena had to be part of all this excitement, dropped whatever she was doing and all of us went hunting for a big piece of cardboard in the garage.
We taped one end to the table and put a chair on the other end so it would stay in place. Their challenge was to aim the cars so they would go under the chair and roll as far as possible.
They all three joined and had fun, while I could sit back, make pictures and finish my coffee. The change to an activity in which they all three could participate, broke the tension between them. And it is so easy to set up that they didn’t have to wait long.
Once the car racing hype was over, Victoria ran to the garage to collect some more cardboard boxes because she had another idea. She made a car from two cardboard boxes. But later on, the car turned into a bed for the “sick” Victoria and her devoted caretaker Elena.
The kids continued to play for a while with the cardboard. Even when my coffee was finished, they were still playing quiet … what a bliss! My morning was saved!
Luckily we have quite some cardboard in the garage, as we often do kids activities with cardboard.
If you know other group activities for kids of mixed ages, do let me know as I’m thinking to make list of different group activities for kids, to refer to in moments when my brain is not up for the challenge!
