Activities for My 7 Year Old Niece to Do.

Updated on June 09, 2010
M.P. asks from Orem, UT
12 answers

Ok I've asked a similar post, but it was during rainy weather. I am yet again watching my niece for who knows how long while we wait for an opening in her daycare day camp program opens. I don't have a car I can take my baby and my niece in so going to the library, museum, or similar activities are not always a possibility. I do live in the middle of a big town, but where I live is just a little to far away to walk. We do have a park that we walk to, but she has already gotten bored of it. I've made a mommy friend with a girl her age, but she doesn't really play with her. Currently she is watching tv, but I don't want her to watch much more, but we just don't have a lot of activities to do here. We've read, napped, baked, played with my son, went to the doctor to get my sons shots (I know, real exciting). What else is there we can do????

What can I do next?

  • Add yourAnswer own comment
  • Ask your own question Add Question
  • Join the Mamapedia community Mamapedia
  • as inappropriate
  • this with your friends

So What Happened?

Oh she's also not one of those play with doll's kind of girls. She's very girly, but not into dolls.

Featured Answers

Smallavatar-fefd015f3e6a23a79637b7ec8e9ddaa6

K.M.

answers from Kansas City on

Go to familyfun.com and makingfriends.com. These websites have lots of activities and suggestions.

Even at seven, my kids still loved Lincoln Logs and Tinker Toys. They would build and rebuild villages and cities.

If you need a break and want to keep the kids occupied, let them follow along with a book on the Tumblebooks website. They can pick a book and either read it themselves, or have the storyteller read it to them.

It's raining here today, too. I'm about to make my kids clean their rooms. Should make me reeeeeally popular!

More Answers

Smallavatar-fefd015f3e6a23a79637b7ec8e9ddaa6

M.C.

answers from Washington DC on

Crafts - color a picture for her mom, make a father's day card for her Dad
Plant flowers
Put a big puzzle together
Play with play dough
Make colored macarroni necklaces
Play dress up
Search through old photos

1 mom found this helpful

B.A.

answers from Saginaw on

Have you asked her what types of things she likes to do? Does she like crafts, coloring, painting. These are all really inexpensive things you can do. You could also look online for ideas. Oh and make playdough, that would be fun.
If she is imaginative, you can play house, barbies...etc with her. Suggest she brings over some of her toys from home that she likes and tell her you'll play with her.
Oh and how about board games, maybe she has some of those too.

Edited to Add: My daughter is not a doll kind of girl either and very girly, although she is only 4 almost 5, she loves to do fashion shows. We play those a lot! She loves it!

C.C.

answers from Little Rock on

When our girls at that age we couldn't afford much. So We made things like a frog out of paper plate and colored them,and masks and even teras out of my BILL envelopes. (That was fun for me HAHAHA). We also at races in the house to se who could pick up the toys the quickest. Just be creative with everything. Get Silly with the way you talk, and even dress, have fun with it. After all you only live once and she is 7 for 1 year. Plus you will be in a better mood and you can be young again!!

I know I miss those days. Now if I do that I here OH NO YOU DIDN'T, or OMG MOM ARE U KIDDING ME U R NOT GOING LOOKING LIKE THAT!!! And there is nothing wrong w/ the way I looked concidering I got my cloths out of their closets.. Oh the live with pre-teens (12-14)
So YAH have fun and u will also be the COOL AUNT FOREVER

Smallavatar-fefd015f3e6a23a79637b7ec8e9ddaa6

K.B.

answers from Harrisburg on

Board games, play-doh, coloring books, a pool or sprinkler out back, water balloons, check online for home-made science experiments using ingredients in your pantry. Computer/video games. Sidewalk chalk. Bike riding. Grow a plant.

K. B
mom to 5 including triplets

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HarrisburgPAChat
events and chat within 2 hour radius

Smallavatar-fefd015f3e6a23a79637b7ec8e9ddaa6

K.B.

answers from Cincinnati on

Routine helps children this age. As my son is 7 years old and if he doesn't have some sort of routine he is very out of the sorts and bored.
We get up eat, he can have up to 1hr of tv at this time, straighten up the inside of the house (give her a specific room to help with--she is old enough to vacuum, dust and straighten). Then we head out side, water the plants, pick weeds or whatever. Then he is told to find something to entertain him for 30 minutes. I actually have a timer that I set and he is not allowed to ask me for something to do during this time. I keep the timer inside where he is not watching it tick tock away--that way if it goes off he doesn't hear it and can stay busy!
We play with the dogs and then we eat lunch. He can have the tv on while eating lunch. In the afternoon he gets reading time by himself for 30 minutes, can have some comupter time (still likes pbskids.com), My mom just said that abcya.com is a good sight that he is playing now and enjoys it.
In the afternoon its back outside for the small swimming pool, playing toss, riding bikes anything of that nature.
If your in a big town do you have any form of public transportation you could use? This could be a huge learning experience.
I also buy workbooks from the store to work on and such to keep skills up from school.

Smallavatar-fefd015f3e6a23a79637b7ec8e9ddaa6

N.B.

answers from Toledo on

Make a trip sometime to a craft store. They have literally hundreds of things for projects---paints for paper or clothing, beads to string and make jewelry, puzzles, I can't even name them all. I'm in the same boat with my granddaughter for the summer, so we're headed out. Good luck.

Smallavatar-fefd015f3e6a23a79637b7ec8e9ddaa6

D.P.

answers from Pittsburgh on

Does she like crafts & art stuff? Beads? If so pick up a few beading kits/marker sets/Paperoni/hook rugs etc

How about tennis against the house wall/ or garage?
Do you have room in the yard for a sprinkler or slip-and-slide or small pool?
Do your nails together
Dance to music
Nature walk or hike
Take lunch to the park
Ride bikes?
Blow bubbles
Make water balloons
Play cards
Play board games
Teach her chess
On days you DO have a car, go to the library, local museum, out to lunch etc.

F.H.

answers from Phoenix on

my 7 yo son loves to play "war" with a regular deck of cards. Not sure if you've ever played but you deal out all the cards between 2 or more players. then you each flip over your first card. The one with the biggest card takes all of them. if you both have the same card, you each place another 3 cards face down and flip another card over, the biggest card wins. You keep doing it until someone has all cards and the rest have none. Good luck and have fun!

Smallavatar-fefd015f3e6a23a79637b7ec8e9ddaa6

C.E.

answers from Provo on

what does she play with at home? can she bring it to your house? she could bring something new every day or bring something to keep at your house for the week. when we first moved closer to my mom she had no toys appropriate for my son. we divided up some of the things he had a lot of and kept them at her house. they were still his, but just got to be played with at the "special" time of visiting grandma.

J.G.

answers from San Antonio on

I found a scrapbook activity online, making a scrapbook out of brown paper lunch sacks. There's links on the left of the page for making books out of toilet paper rolls too. Fun, new, hands-on. Doesn't matter if it looks sloppy. I just started making one for Father's Day. But she could make a book of poems, a book of her art, a book of her family album.
http://www.scrapbook-crazy.com/paper-bag-album-instructio...

I like the idea of a big jig-saw puzzle. Let her pick one out at the store and pick a spot to do it in. Spend a few mins every day so the puzzle will take a long time. Or the dollar store has smaller puzzles.

MAKE playdough.

How old is your son? Maybe she can teach him, read to him, make him a scrapbook.

Let her earn an allowance from you helping you change diapers, sweep the floor, unpack the dishwasher.....

get her on websites. www.pbskids.org has games. Curious George has a LOT of games.

Keep with the cooking. Let her find recipes online (put her on a kids website like http://www.childrensrecipes.com/). She can help make lunch. This will help with reading skills and math skills too (double a recipe, have her do 1/3 a cup. Let her play with the measuring cups. See if 3 1/3 cups really equal one cup.)

That being said, do fun math games. Use rice or beans to measure things. Learn on her own about cups/pints/quarts/gallons. Get old sour cream containers, ice cream pints, etc. Wash them and use those to help her learn what a pint is, a cup is, etc. (Sorry - I'm a former teacher. It's in my brain to do this sort of thing. My 2nd graders liked learning with these items they had at home - the ice cream containers and such).

Play in the sprinkler! Get squirt guns and water balloons.

Go for a walk around the neighborhood and play "I spy" at the same time, or have her collect things along the way. When she gets home, let her make a picture book for your son (with the brown paper sacks). Tape the item to the book and write what it is on each page. ie: ROCK with a small rock taped to it. FLOWER with a dandlion taped to it. GRASS with lots of grass taped to the book.

Cut out pictures from magazines and make a collage. (animal collage, my favorite things collage, etc)
Or cut out the pictures, glue them to cardstock (old cereal boxes), tape those to a popsicle stick, and have yourself a litle puppet show. She can write a script!

Good luck. I have a book called "365 tv free activities" with tons more ideas. See if you can get a book like that for more ideas.

Smallavatar-fefd015f3e6a23a79637b7ec8e9ddaa6

E.C.

answers from San Francisco on

find some craft books from your local library or check some online sites like familyfun.com . There's lots of fun crafts that can be done with things like old cereal boxes, cardboard tubes from paper towels or toilet paper, paper bags, cardboard boxes, etc. Have her help make paper bag puppets out of sandwich size paper bags and do a puppet show for your son. Make musical instruments with dried beans and cardboard tubes or paper plates. Bake cookies or do some no-bake thing like rice krispy treats. Borrow some books on CD if your library has them (when my now-8YO's were 7 they liked the Magic Treehouse and American Girl books that our library has on CD as well as in print) and if you need some quiet time for your son, have her put on headphones and read along as she listens to the books.

For Updates and Special Promotions
Follow Us

Related Questions