As April 1st approaches, children are preparing jokes. The little ones stick fishes wherever they can (and sometimes it's more on your jeans than on your back), the older ones try to have more ingenious stratagems "Taste this cookie I made for you" (and there, you can see that toothpaste is stuck between two pieces of biscuit...)
This year, Mômji has decided to help you participate in this April 1st celebration where everything (well, almost everything) is allowed.
Make sure with the parents that it's ok to do the jokes.
1 - Surprise meal
Mealtime is always a good time to introduce new foods to children. However, they are unlikely to expect to eat (!) tins* or carrot and cucumber sticks at snack time instead of their usual cakes and apple sauce. For the more adventurous, you can also put salt on a banana.
2 - It's snowing!*
It's well known that in April, you don't have to be afraid of snow. But that doesn't mean you can't see snow through the window... Wait until the children are busy playing and shout "Oh, it's snowing! Come and see in the living room". They should come running and stick their noses in the window. Too bad...
* Well, this year the weather seems to play more jokes than excepted. Snow is announced in Paris in the night of thursday to friday...
3 - Eyes in the fridge
If you have little eye-shaped stickers, stick them on yoghurts, milk, bottles... It's a guaranteed surprise when the fridge is opened. (And if you don't have any, you can draw them).
4 - Amazing fruits
For dessert, nothing beats a nice apple. Except that you will have slipped some fruit from the plastic or wooden dinette into the basket, and that is what you will offer to finish the meal. Be careful they do not bite into it!
5 - Help, my feet have grown!
Slip newspaper discreetly onto the bottom of their shoes and look suprised when they explain that their little foot no longer fits into their favourite pair of trainers.
6 - Spiders in the toilet
Let say that the children are old enough to go to the toilet by themselves. Draw a spider on the third or fourth sheet of toilet paper. Wait until he/she screams.
7 - Smurf milk
A few drops of blue food colouring in the milk carton should surprise those who can help themselves.
8 - Pets have a life too
Take a few photos of their pet on the sofa with a remote control near its paw, or with a book in front of it, and make the children think that Snoopy too has a busy life when they are at school. (With a goldfish it doesn't work as well...)
9 - Changing first names
Call the children by a different name for at least ten minutes. Alice will become Clara, Arthur will become Noah...
10 - Computer breakdown
Here's a joke for grown-ups (kids or not). Stick a piece of tape on the light of the computer mouse. This should drive the user nut.
While some of the jokes on this list will only amuse you, others will get the kids thinking and exercising their sense of logic, or even force them to solve puzzles: why the milk turned blue, why the mouse stopped working, why their feet grew huge overnight... Because you can have fun while exercising your neurons.
* that you will leave closed. The idea is not to waste but to scare them!
