Celebrate at home
Discover simple and fun activities to help you celebrate Te Rā o Ngā Tamariki | Children's Day at home with your family whānau | family.
Tips and Tricks
Although there's heaps of awesome Children's Day events running across the country you may just want to spend time celebrating at home with your family.
Children have let us know that a day at home with their whānau can be just as exciting as going out. The most important thing to kids is time with their caregivers doing fun stuff. It can be something as simple as making an extra yummy breakfast, reading them that extra bedtime story or playing some of their favourite games with them (e.g. Minecraft or Roblox).
Big or small - let's all come together for tamariki.
We talked to some kids to find out what they wanted to do at home. They said they wanted to:
- Spend more time with family
- Play games (computer games, board games, and fun games outside)
- Have a dance party
- Do some arts and crafts
- Eat yummy kai like lollies and pizza.
Check out these awesome ideas to see how you can celebrate Children's Day at home with your family!
Play Chasing Pirates
What you'll need
Some energy to burn, especially on a rainy day, a large area and two or more people.
How to play 'Chasing Pirates'
Whatever the weather, get outside for some pirate fun!
- Choose who will be the pirates (often the kids) and who will be the crocodiles.
- Give the pirates three seconds to run away... screaming!
- Then the crocodiles can chase, catch them and gobble them up before letting them go and beginning again.
Make a recycled robot
What you'll need
Scissors, glue, tape, decorations and clean recycled goodies like small boxes, plastic milk bottles, paper towel rolls and milk bottle tops.
How to make your recycled robot
- Decide how you'll put your robot together. What part will be the body? What could you use for the arms and legs?
- Use glue and tape to hold your robot together.
- Bring your robot to life by adding eyes, a mouth, hair and other details like buttons, shoes and clothes.
- Give your robot a name and find it a special place to sit.
Make Chalk Paint
What you'll need
1 cup of cornflour, 1 cup of water, a muffin tin, food colouring and paintbrushes.
How to make chalk paint
- Mix the cornflour and water together the split the mixture among your muffin cups.
- Add a few drops of different food colouring to each cup.
- Use your paint brushes to decorate your driveway or footpath.
- You could draw each other, draw some blue puddles to 'jump in' or even draw the letters of your name.
Treasure Hunt
What you'll need
Things to hide (such as stickers, special treats or 'I love you' notes), and some helpful clues.
Create a quick hunt
- Take turns hiding things and giving clues.
- When the person goes the wrong way say "cold, colder"...
- When they go the right way say "warm, warmer, very very hot!"
Create a special hunt
- Hide all your things then give the hunters their first hand-drawn (or written) clue.
- This clue will lead to the first treat and the next clue until all treats are found.
Extra for experts
Have a night time hunt with torches or have two teams racing to find what you've hidden.
Dance Party
What you'll need
Music (if you're stuck on what to play check out YouTube for some good ideas), an open area and a dance buddy or two.
How to host your dance party
Hosting a dance party is easy.
All you need to do is put on some good music, invite your friends and family and break out your best dance moves. When you're choosing your songs to dance to make sure you give everyone a chance to pick their favourite songs!
Extra for experts
Once you've had some fun dancing why not challenge your friends and family to a dance battle! You could even create a cool trophy for the person who dances the best!
Host a Movie Night
What you'll need
A good movie, some yummy snacks, a few pillows and your friends and family.
How to host a movie night
Hosting a movie night can be really simple or you can choose to go all out and make it something extra special!
The most important thing to remember is to pick a movie that everyone wants to watch ahead of time and bring some yummy snacks to eat.
Extra for experts
Make some movie tickets and assign seating for you and your family.