Vigorous physical activity is a big part of each day to keep young children healthy, but adults need to plan for quiet activities, too.

While some limited TV time is OK, what are some other quiet, easily managed activities you can set up?

Materials Needed: magazines, paper, crayons, markers, scissors, paint set, Q-tips, yarn, water, small rocks and white glue.

Painting with Water

Take a science walk and collect rocks of various colors, sizes and shapes.

At home, set your children up with a waterproof area and provide a small paintbrush or Q-tip and a bowl of water to help build up the small muscles of their hands.

These muscles must be strong to print letters. Show how to “paint” the rocks with water and notice how the color shows up like magic.

Crayon Resist

Use a crayon on paper to carefully print your young children’s names in big letters. Use a capital for the first letter and lowercase for the following letters.

Then use water with a little paint color to make a wash over the whole sheet. The name will stand out and be a perfect door decoration or book cover for a whole series of pictures.

You can use dots or dashes to outline names. Show children how to start at the top of each letter to correctly follow the dots to print their names.

Praise what they can do. They’ll try their best.