Going from one person to 5 people over half term

downshifter

Next week I have 4 children coming to stay in my one person household. Can anyone suggest meals I can prepare now in readiness? Pref cheap - really cheap! It's years since I had to cook for more than a couple so my mind has gone blank. Spag bol and variations on that are about the limit to my monday-morning imagination at the moment!! Unfortunately I only have quite a small freezer, but can free up some space in readiness.

Also ideas for activities would be great, I'd especially be grateful for ideas for things I can start them off on and let them do themselves as I'd like a little bit of feet-up-and-a-coffee time for me. (I thought of plays which they like to do and I love to watch - hysterical) Ages range from 5 - 11, mix girls and boys. I can think of things we can go out to together on the whole and then the usual colouring, sticker books etc. Also country walks, feeding chickens and all that, but can't do that all day!

Any help - esp o/s ideas would be fab

Thanks

DS

Olliebeak

Kids seem to like making pizzas - could you let them do that for themselves?

Sausages, fishfingers, baked beans usually go down quite well too. How about teaching them to make home-made burgers - bit like playing with plasticine, so even the youngest could perhaps shape their own.

Hope the weather stays fine for the week - nothing worse than bad weather and cooped up kids in school holidays.

Are they bringing dvd's or ds games with them - could be your lifeline to sanity if they do - otherwise they'll want to hog your comp .

And good luck with the extra washing/drying too .

Chris25

pasta bakes & omelettes or frittatas, not a lot of freezer space needs to be used
apple pies or crumbles - apples cheap at the moment.
Bake bread - I sgree with Ollie pizzas a great idea, they love to make them and choose their toppings

what about like making collages? they could collect things from a walk and glue them to paper with scraps from magazines, wallpaper. fabrics buttons etc.

make a bird feeder http://www.care2.com/greenliving/make-easy-bird-feeders.html

make a diary of their half-term holiday? - give them some paper, a hole punch and ribbon, let them make a booklet and then fill it in for every day. They could do it 'rebus style' where they put a picture instead of a word eg 'I went by bus to the dentist' - they could cut out a picture or drawing of an eye for the first word, a picture instead of the word bus and so on.

Make a WordSearch for them http://www.teachers-direct.co.uk/resources/wordsearches/wordsearch-maker.aspx or http://www.puzzles.ca/wordsearch.html you can use all of their names & any other words relevant to them or it could be TV programmes, anything. And give a little prize to the one who completes it first

Have alook on here - some good ideas http://www.allkids.co.uk/boredom-busters/index.html

good luck

brownhandbag

What about pancakes? I always do the drop scone version so more american style. Good for breakfast or pudding.Also if they are on holiday with you coco pops are a hit with all ages. Buy cheap ones and put into tuppaware and they won't know the difference

Olliebeak

Chris25 - thanks for those websites - I'm always on the look-out for sites for my dgk's.

ubamother

hm soup and chunky bread fill them up and usually goes down well.

If you want to be super-organised, a silly theme for each day - from food to games to crafts goes down bizarrely well with kids of a wide age range

So day one could be American Indian day, eating corn on the cob and roast pumpkin, corn bread etc. Get a huge piece of hessian (dust sheets are cheapest) and they can cut and 'sew'/staple costumes, make teepees, headdresses etc. warpaint/rain dances. Not terribly modern and pc, but I've done this camping with a bunch of kids and they loved it.

Other day ideas - pirate day - walking the plank, making ships, eye patches, treasure maps/hunt, sea shanties

Nature day - collect leaves/cones for decorating or making into stuff, bark rubbings etc.

Music day - make shakers/rubber band guitars, dancing, listening to different types of music, doing a 'show'

Primrose

If the weather's lousy a cheap not-too-difficult jigsaw from a charity shop set up on a separate table might be a way to help keep them quiet as they can go back and forwards to that between times.
for the older ones you could cut out some pretty pictures from a newspaper or old magazine and have some pencils & paper handy and get them to sit down a write a little story about the pictures, using their own imagination.