We suggest: Recipes for Play: Creative Activities for Small Hands and Big Imaginations by Rachel Sumner and Ruth Mitchener

Why?: With the cold weather now upon us, it’s easy to let kids slip into a tv-watching, iPhone-playing, tablet-swiping routine. But experimenting, playing, and using their hands is vital for children’s learning. Recipes for Play provides not only the ultimate guide for fun, but it engages all five senses—perfect for sparking any child’s imagination! Your friends will be thrilled with this guide for go-to activities for their young kids (maybe just warn them about the slime, although the clean up is surprisingly easy!).

With recipes for rainbow ice, colorful clouds, face paint, and more, kids won’t even think about missing their favorite shows or the high score on their newest. We also recommend letting your friends know that each recipe comes with a mess rating. This way, they can easily select the easy clean-up recipes when they only have an hour to kill and save the messy projects for the babysitter! Everybody wins! (And let’s not forget post-holiday cabin fever that settles in. How many days ‘til school’s back in session?)

Bonus: Kids that learn how to follow recipes now will be a huge help in the kitchen in the future!