Grandmother Footsteps
If you have children getting under your feet and driving you crazy, send them outside to play this simple, but fun, game.
Choose one child to start as Grandmother. He or she has to face the wall or fence at the far end of the garden. The other children line up near you and wait until you give the signal
The aim is to get to the other end of the garden without being seen by Grandmother. Everyone slowly and quietly makes their way towards the other side, but when Grandmother turns round (which she can do as often as she likes) anyone who is seen moving will be made to go back to the start. Grandmother faces the wall again and the game continues with all of the other players creeping forwards from where they stopped. The process is repeated until one child touches Grandmother and is the winner. That child then becomes Grandmother and the game starts again.
Give a small prize (a sweet or sticker) to each winner before they take Grandmother’s place to make them more competitive.
You can ring the changes on this game by giving the children animals in whose style they must move, eg monkey, elephant etc. If when Grandmother turns they haven’t frozen in the posture of that animal they also get sent back to the beginning, along with anybody caught moving. Another change, which makes it a lot of fun, is to give them Dad’s shoes to wear on one foot only and insist that they have to get to Grandmother with one foot in an outsize shoe!