A moment at home can be really refreshing after some big adventures in your city or 10km radius as it may be this year.

Here are four great ways to create fun in the home with added developmental benefits.

1. Hands-on eye-spy

Challenge your kids to find something in the house starting with different letters of the alphabet. 'Find something starting with the letter Q' is going to be one of the hardest, so perhaps hold that one until the end.

Repeat the process with five items. Once they have all five, they have to make up a story using the items.

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2. Tell a group story

This was one of our family's favourite when I was a kid. Dad would start with, 'once upon a time, there was a dragon,' and he'd ask us to add the detail as we went. 'The dragon's name was bumble,' we'd say. And so on.

The trick is to make sure you build in a complication and resolution to the narrative, so that the kids stay hooked. The weirder the better. 'The Dragon had a sore foot and never learnt to fly, so he couldn't make it to his cousin's wedding.'

As a bonus, get your kids to write their version of the story after you're done.

Don't get too hung up on how good your story is. This can be hit and miss and sometimes the creativity flows, sometimes it doesn't. If it doesn't, there's always number three.

3. Build a blanket fort

No holds barred is best; all blankets and pillows in the house are fair game. The one rule you might want them to agree to first is: they have to help pack it away. Hours of fun await.

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