Keep your child occupied wherever you are, using any tools at hand. Get creative!

Picture this. You are at the doctor's clinic waiting for your turn. Your child is with you and is getting more and more restless every passing minute. You don't need to carry a case full of your child's toys and books along with you all the time to keep the peace. With a little creativity and imagination the world can be your child's plaything.

At a clinic

Ask the receptionist for some blank paper, some coloured paper and glue. The coloured paper could be a page from an old magazine, or even a page from a newspaper. Draw an outline of any animal, tree, bird or house with a pen on the blank sheet. Then, let your child take the coloured paper or newspaper and tear it into tiny pieces. He can then stick the tiny torn pieces into the drawing in the form of a collage.

If your child still doesn't know how to spell his name, you can write down his name in large, block letters, and let him make a collage of his name. This will help him get familiar with alphabets and spellings.

At a friend's house

Give your child a mixture of various dals like Rajma, Kabuli chana, moong dal, urad dal etc and green peas. Ask your younger child to separate the grains and put them in separate bowls. Use dals with as large grains as you can find so your child doesn't have to strain too much while doing this. Use just a teaspoon or at the most, a tablespoon of each dal, so your child doesn't lose patience.

If your child is a little older, try this: Draw out a large face of a girl or boy, or an animal, and let your child stick dals on the image. He can use black grains for the eyes, pink grains for the skin, and colourful grains for the clothes. You can also provide him with rice for the eyes or any other part he wants to colour white. This should keep him well occupied for forty-five minutes to an hour.

Similarly, as entailed above, your child can also make a collage uses pages from an old magazine.

At home

Children love modeling items out of plasticene. If you are running out of plasticene, instead of rushing to the nearest shop to buy some more, here's how you can make a similar moulding substance at home. You will need:

1. 1 cup flour
   
2. 1 tablespoon oil
   
3. 1/2 a cup of salt
   
4. 1 cup water
   
5. 2 tablespoons of cream of tartar
   
6. A little food colouring (optional)