Ideas for entertaining 9 yr old grandson

A pack of playing cards provides entertainment and education. My children learnt to mentally count up to 21 very quickly from playing pontoon. There are several versions of Patience/Solitaire to enjoy. Also card tricks to learn and practice to impress parents.

Word games eg a fruit or veg starting with each letter of the alphabet. Crosswords and puzzle books.

Helping you round the house - he could fold laundry, prepare veg, make his bed, dust and maybe even Hoover if yours is not too heavy.

Science experiments are fun, check out websites for ideas. Bug hunting, although that may not be too successful this time of year! Bird spotting esp if you have binoculars and keeping a log. Gardening work, if it's not too cold outside.

Knitting and sewing is fun, and sewing is an especially useful life skill. Will you go shopping at all? Thinking of meals, writing shopping lists etc then putting away the food. If your musical, making music or singing together.

If you have any pets, looking after them will be enjoyable. My 5yo GD, who has no pets at home, has had great fun feeding our two cats!

Have fun!

are fun

you're musical.

My grandchildren love lots of the old favourite board games, such as Ludo and Snakes and Ladders. We have all – well, not the the three-year-old – recently learned to play Chinese Checkers and the ten-year-old is an absolute wizard. I have also taught them to play backgammon, which is one of my favourite games. Card games from snap and go fish to beggar my neighbour and sevens also amuse them from time to time. Cooking is always a good wheeze, especially if it's something easy such as chocolate chip cookies or cheese muffins – and helps with learning weights and measures. If you're short of time, go for a no-cook recipe, such as lolly cake – utterly disgusting but kids love it. I also have one grandchild who is never happier than when polishing the silver – not that there's child exploitation nor anything…

Old fashioned classic games such as dominoes, draughts, tiddlywinks - today's children often don't get to play them.
Sure you'll both enjoy cooking together, both treats and actual meals.
Sewing and knitting are useful skills for boys as well as girls.

There are websites with instructions for science experiments online, for instance an impressive, and perfectly safe, volcano can be made with vinegar and bicarbonate of soda plus some scrap cardboard.
Sure you'll enjoy each others' company a lot!

A week is a long time to be stuck indoors playing cards, is he allowed any screen time ? Not even an hour a day? You could watch David Attenborough or some good programme together for maybe an hour in the evening? It would be good to have a longer project on the go that he could have something to show for his time with you. Make a big scrapbook of something he’s interested in like dinosaurs or space, but maybe using the internet for this would be allowed? Make a Norman castle out of some big cardboard boxes with all the correct rooms, knights, ladies - again you’d need a book or internet for reference here this could take a while, or maybe make a model Viking boat or something else you could research. Make a big collage/ drawing on lining paper of your area- collect leaves, acorns, pine cones whatever to draw or stick, different bird species he can observe through the window and find out about, he’ll need some time to run around so maybe get a small goal post and football or swingball you could put in the garden so he can have a bit of outdoor play. Have you got any neighbours with similar age children you could invite round?

Junk modelling was always popular with GS. Get together a collection of cardboard boxes, plastic bits and pieces, egg boxes, polystyrene, cardboard tubes, and build something, then paint it with poster paints. Board games and card games are always popular here too. DAS modelling clay is good too. It air dries and then you can paint it. It is a tad messy though!

I made a banana loaf a few days ago and it was lovely. I think it was a Mary Berry recipe I got from the internet. You would need a couple of very ripe bananas though. I plan to make another next time my GC are staying here.

We used to masks out of stiff paper or card, or paper mache.

Download and print off a street map of an area that includes his home, school; infact any familiar places. Give him destinations to navigate to from his home and get him to write down the directions including what he would pass on the way.

Lots of good ideas so far - my DGD(9) loves arts & crafts so I always have plenty of supplies.

As has been said, a week is a long time for the lad not to go out, other than up the road or in the garden, I think you should allow him more screen time. All very well for his mum to restrict tablet/TV but that's when he has his normal home routine.

Is he not at school by the way?

DGs aged 10 is into story boards..ie planning a short film by drawing each scene... then filming!

bikerhiker he’s not able to go out ! Just out of curiosity why can’t he go out ? I can’t imagine a week indoors with a 9 year old boy all mine would go stir crazy, is he or you ill if not and there’s nowhere to go but up your short road can’t you get a bus to somewhere shopping centre, swimming pool, gym , playpark aren’t there any other kids nearby I couldn’t manage a child in all day every day for a week, youre a better woman than me
Lots of good ideas from other posters
Personally I don’t think there’s much wrong with screen time as long as it’s not all the time

Oops..posted too soon...and photography. Maybe he could plan and create a photographic diary of his,stay with you. Otherwise as others have said..cards, board games etc all popular too.

I know he can't go out. He can do this all on paper at the table. Writing down what he would pass on the way is a memory test. Presumably he goes out normally, whether walking or by car.

I taught all our children and older grandchildren the British Sign Language alphabet.

youtu.be/WGEKXi517xA

You can use it to spell out the names of things to collect around the house, ask and answer quiz questions, or anything you can think of really. Ours all loved the idea that they could talk ‘ in secret’!
It’s a good skill to have too.

I was assuming the lad was recovering from surgery/ illness and that was keeping him housebound!

Set him to work!! Seriously, they love to feel useful. Yesterday my 7 year old GS barrowed all the wood round from the wood store to near the house so life would be easier for me. He loved it! - he felt like the real man of the house and knew he was doing something purposeful. I did it with him - we counted logs, worked out the best direction to have the barrow to get it up a step, admired the different shapes of the logs, worked out how best to stack them so the stack would not fall down, admired and rescued spiders etc. etc. He then spent a long time helping me get the Christmas tree down, and to put the decorations in store.

He had a brilliant time, and his Mum has been on the phone to say how much he loved it.

We also played chess - my goodness, that boy is so good at it - he wipes me off the board in about 10 minutes!!!

We taught our 9 and 6 y.o. GS to play pontoon and trumps over the Christmas holidays, the loved it. They also enjoy word games such as Sue mentioned. Another they like is pick a category for example animals, write it down, they then have to ask questions "does it fly/swim has it got fur" to discover what's written down.
Our 9 y.o. also loves lego and can follow the instructions to make complicated models independantly

I used to do scientific experiments or projects with my GCs. They loved them and the messier the better! Some examples here but many more on Google search.
www.noguiltmom.com/very-simple-science-experiments/

Activities for my boys at the age of nine included:
Origami/paper planes/paper modelling
Reading fact/fiction
Knitting/cross stitch
Cooking/baking/making sweets
Conducting science experiments
Learning/performing magic tricks
Cleaning/washing/ironing
Gardening
Board games/cards/dominoes
Active games e.g. Twister/memory games/treasure hunt
Arts/crafts

Looking at the list and having just hosted my 'boys' (now in their late twenties) during Christmas I realise that they still enjoy doing most of the above activities and when they were here they pretty well reverted to being nine years old in terms of their playfulness.

What a wonderful lot you are and with such brilliant suggestions.

I should explain that dgs is with me only from 7am until 4:30-5pm when Mum gets back from work.

He's here all this week and from 21-26th, that being part of the long school holidays. In between he'll be at a holiday programme.

I live in a suburban area, the street is owned by a charity and all pensioners, so no local children.

We're confined here because I don't walk well and a visual handicap means I can't use public transport. The idea that we collect leaves and things in our lovely, tree-lined street is good though.

He will have some approved DVDs which he can watch on my small portable machine (and David Attenborough is his all time favourite) but Mum prefers he does other, creative, constructive things - as do I.

We will be doing domestic work - he's going to help me plant jalapeno peppers into a tub as they are now large enough in their seed box, and we'll do some pruning of the pelagonium which has gone a bit wild and silly.

Cooking is definitely on the menu - we'll be making Pet au Soeur this morning, mainly for its title but because he also loves cinnamon and it's an easy thing to make.

As it was National Shortbread Day yesterday, that'll be given a whirl as well.
THANK YOU ALL

I forgot to thank you Daddima for the suggestion to learn signing.
I sign but dgs doesn't, so we'll definitely be doing that.

I learned the signing alphabet as a child and taught it to my sister and what fun we got from being able to talk about our parents!
It's a little more complicated nowadays, whole phrases and new expressions - and I do have a bit of trouble seeing people's hands as well - but I'll persevere.

Make salt dough then use it to make models or figures and paint them.