How to Entertain and Involve Your Kids During NFL Playoffs

If you're anything like us, you would love to be able to watch the Playoff games and Superbowl.  The question that always comes up…how to occupy the kids.  Of course, the easy answer is to put on a movie.  But, why not entertain them with some educational activities that you can supervise while still watching the game?

This whole thing does take some prep before the game starts, but doing a little work before the game will benefit the actual watching of the game immensely.  Totally worth it.

Things to do before the game:

• Print out a few football related coloring pages from online and have a good box of crayons or markers ready.  You will tell them they need to color them in using the colors of the team you are rooting for. Do a Google search for "free football coloring pages" and you will find plenty of sites with free pages for you to print.
• Make Bingo cards with all types of animals on them.  Buy a few cheap prizes (I love $1 stores!).  You will use these Bingo cards to look for animals during the commercials.  If they get a Bingo, they get a prize. There are several websites that you can use to make your bingo cards if you search for "free bingo card generator".
• Make sure you have plenty of snacks that you don't mind your kid(s) eating (fruit, veggie sticks with dip, popcorn, etc.)
• Convince your child to create a touchdown dance they can perform each time your team scores (good exercise for them, too).
• Create a safe path to somewhere in your house that they have to run and touch for luck on each 4th down.  Make sure they can get back and forth without getting hurt.  This one will really wear them out...sometimes Beth sits and watched the whole second half after doing this one the first half!

Once the game starts, the first thing we do is make sure Beth knows which team we are rooting for.  Since she is only four, we just go by the colors and mascot.  We then tell her to work throughout the game to color her pictures in the color of “her” team.  We make sure to tell her when she needs to do a 4th Down Run.  When she returns from the run, we all give her high fives, like she’s coming out of the tunnel.  During the commercials, we watch for animals (or whatever pictures you choose) and play Bingo.  Her favorites (and Daddy’s too, for obvious reasons) are the touchdown dances...she loves to perform the dance and song made up for the touchdowns, while we cheer.  

It takes some prep, but it IS possible to watch a football game with your four-year-old.  And, the time spent together is even more fun than watching the game.