How to fill long days with 7 yr old & baby

[MrsP2C]

Any suggestions for how to fill an 11 hour day with a lively 7 yr old and a quiet, clingy 1 year old (not siblings). I normally have 2 or 3 older ones and they're pretty good at playing at home together or running around the park/garden etc but Thursday & Friday this week I'll have just 1 older boy plus a little one who is only just walking and am struggling to come up with activities that will entertain them both. Fingers crossed the weather will be ok for a park visit but it's so cold I can't see us staying more than an hour tops and that still leaves most of the day to fill. I never thought I'd be wishing for extra mindees in the holidays!!
Any ideas?

[supermumy]

Board games
Hama beads are great for older ones
Arts and crafts
Playdoh
Museums their indoors
Ballparks

[Angela234]

cooking with the older one try and get out as much as possible

visit the library and let older one choose some books to read at yours

Look at doing a project something the older one has an interest in get them to search internet and look in books
Like dinosaurs; look for infro, pictures, activities
A country, favourite football team; your county (its history searce for pictures book from library do you have a local museum.
Go for a walk take photos of local area

[jackie 7]

How about a project? Something he is interested in. You could go to library and find books on it. Lots of cutting and sticking.

[MrsP2C]

Thanks guys - project it is with trip on the bus to the library and lots of cutting,sticking, making etc :clapping:. Hopefully I'll have an hour or so in the afternoons when baby is sleeping (if I can keep her awake in the morning :rolleyes:) so I can do board games or maybe some cooking and have promised a play on the Wii one day which he's v.excited about as I've never let mindees play on it before. TBH I can usually quite happily entertain baby and 2 or 3 older children but really struggled with just one as he does reply on his 'playmates' ie my kids & other mindees none of which will be there.
Thanks again :D

[hectors house]

How about getting some lining paper and you draw round the 7 year old and see if the 7 year old can draw round the toddler, then the 7 year old could colour them both in - could use it for measuring activity afterwards - size of hands etc - may bond them together a bit and get 7 year old to recognise differences and similarities in appearance.

[Houlgated]

How about a scavenger hunt type activity - do a sheet with things you might see on your trip to the library etc and get him to mark them off/collect things on the list etc.

[skatie]

If you have room in the freezer, freeze some interesting things in tubs of water, tip into large container with small amount of coloured water and just let him play. Older ones spent ages on this today but the younger ones weren't interested. Good luck, I know the feeling when you have all day looming ahead of you and such big age differences.