If the only thing your child is suffering with right now is cabin fever, consider yourself lucky.
Contrary to popular belief, kids can contract strep throat and hand-foot-and-mouth disease at the same time.
Let me tell you how I know this…
Actually, I will spare you the gory details and instead share more practical advice for conquering cabin fever during these last days of winter break. Students in our neck of the woods head back to class next Monday. That means parents have to endure a few more days of kids complaining that their new Christmas toys are not as appealing as they were on December 25th.
If you are looking for ways to preserve your sanity while keeping your kids entertained indoors, consider the following ideas:
Operation Snowflake: In the days following the devastating mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the Connecticut Parent Teacher Student Association asked school children across the nation to make paper snowflakes to decorate the new school displaced students will be relocating to next week. The handcrafted snowflakes will be used to decorate classrooms and hallways. The goal is to create a winter wonderland for Sandy Hook students at their new school. You and your children can make snowflakes with some cheap coffee filters or recycled computer paper. To spice up the flakes, use aluminum foil or leftover pieces of metallic scrapbook paper.
Frosty Minus the Snow: If the weather is too frightful to go out and play, bring the magic of making snowmen indoors. Rather than using ice to create Frosty, you can make a modified version with shaving cream or soap suds. The latter is very inexpensive. All you need is a large bowl, some Ivory Snow and water. Simply add the water to the bowl, stir in some of the soap and keep mixing until you achieve a dough-like consistency. The soap can then be shaped into balls and stacked. Hold the body together with toothpicks and decorate Frosty with small twigs for arms, old buttons for eyes, a carrot tip for a nose and scraps of fabric for a scarf.