KEEP THE CHILDREN BUSY

For cooler days:

DOUGH: Mix together 1 1/2 cups salt; 1 1/2 tbsp cooking oil; 3 teaspoons cream of tartar; 3 cups boiling water; 3 cups flour. Mix dry ingredients in a bowl and add boiling water into the centre. Stir well until mixture leaves the side of the bowl, add more flour if still sticky. Store in an airtight container.

BLOCKS AND LEGO: Great activity. To clean up a messy floor afterwards, get down with the children and all pretend to be bulldozers pushing everything into a pile in the middle to put into a box.

PRETEND PLAY:

• Dressing up - Make up a box of old clothes, bags, hats, shoes, scarves etc. and have a mirror where they can check themselves out
• Huts - Blankets and cushions, large cardboard boxes make great huts. Clean up at the end of the day. Outside anything goes. Get Dad to help with wood planks boxes etc. It is only fun if they build it, and most of the fun is in the building.

"The illusions of childhood are necessary experiences: a child should not be denied a balloon because an adult knows that sooner or later it will burst"....Marcelene Cox