Who’s heard of these terms in relation to play activities? 

This gem of a concept has saved my parenting sanity on more than one occasion over the past 8 years so I thought it best to share as mother’s up and down the land stare down the barrel of the never ending school summer holidays….

So here goes…. all children over the age of 18 months will operate (mostly) well with an expansion and contraction routine of 45 minute windows.

What does that mean? 

Well, an expansion activity is one where children are able to play physically in whatever way their imagination and active bodies want to take them. A bit of ‘starting off’ from a parent, carer or older sibling is often all that is needed. 

A contraction activity is one which requires more physical containment and control, often associated with sitting and concentrating on a small motor skill task.

Simple, right? But how do we apply it to make life easier for us parents looking to fill days? 

First, grab a pen and paper and write down as many expansion activities as you can using the resources you already have and different areas of your home and surrounding spaces. Great examples are:

• Chalk racetrack and car park on the drive way for ride in toys

• Dolls clothes shop in the bedroom

• Obstacle course in the garden

• Dried pasta and diggers in the lounge (add in any kitchen cups, bowls, scoops etc you like)

• Teddy bears picnic

• Building toy car ramps with books, planks of wood or cardboard

• Den building

• Bike and scooter rides and races

• Trip to the park

• Build a fairy garden

• Train track building

• Matchbox car ‘car wash’ station

• Make up a dance routine

• Superhero Power Swap Academy (personal fave)

Then, look around your resources again and come up with some contraction activities to do together or for the kids to do individually (the more specific the better). Examples of these could be:

• stamping, colouring, painting

• Setting up a mini-library corner

• Threading

• Lego/DUPLO challenge (eg make a tower)

• Baking

• Stickers

• Painting or play doh

• If you have older kids how about a slime lab?

• Design and Junk modelling

• Colour sorting activities (preschoolers)

• Board games

• Card games like Top trumps

• Rock painting

• Water painting or chalk drawing outside

• Small world role play

• Marble runs

• Audiobooks

• Hamma Beads/ Aqua Beads (so many types of beads!)

• Spirograph

Once you’ve made your magic lists start to think about the structure of your day. Children thrive on routine, even when outside of school. They love to be able to see what activities lie ahead that day/week. So grab your felt tips and an A3 sheet and make a plan! 

What has always worked well for us is an hourly routine (45 min activity plus time to sort/tidy) and plenty of unstructured time too to enable me to turn the washing over, prep supper etc etc. So our days tend to look something like this:

7am Up, breakfast & free play

8.30 washed and dressed

9am Expansion

10 snack

10.30 contraction

11.30 free play

12.00 lunch

1pm expansion

2pm contraction

3pm snack & free play

4pm TV or gadgets

5pm supper

6.15 bath & story

7pm bed

I’m also super sneaky and many of our expansion activities are actually just functional dog walks, but with a ‘collection challenge’ or ‘best stick award’ twist to them! I’m also not adverse to spending time drawing/colouring shopping lists with them to then enable the kids to help me grocery shop (far better than just getting cross with them for wanting to run up and down the isles!). 

The bottom line is, the expanse of summer holidays with children at home can start to be a chore, especially if the weather is less than favourable or you simply run out of ideas or cash to keep them entertained. For the days when you don’t have a plan, I hope this helps. 

It may not follow your exact routine that you outline- and this isn’t supposed to be a ‘one size fits all’ offering- but even getting to a point in the day when it’s acceptable to give in to the TV or kindle for an hour will make you feel like you’re winning rather than overwhelmed.