Things to do in hospital

Being in hospital can be boring, but it doesn’t have to be if you treat it as a chance to work on your master plan! When you are staying in hospital you will probably have time to focus on some seriously creative projects. Here are some suggestions that will keep you busy.

Perhaps you want to have a go at being the next J.K. Rowling or writing the best book since Roald Dahl invented Fantastic Mr Fox.

Writing gives you the chance to escape into your imagination – and who knows where that will take you?

Once you get writing, time will fly. You might not think of writing as being that much fun, but there are lots of different types you can try:

• A play – choose some characters, think about what will happen, and how it might look if people were performing it. You might even end up showing it to your friends and family some time.
  
• A TV show – lots of the programmes on television are based on scripts, so you could try writing a scene for you’re a soap you like – what would your favourite characters say to each other and what would happen?
  
• A story – stories don’t have to be long, and you can choose to write about whatever you like. It might be a scary ghost story, an adventure or a funny story about a group of friends.
  
• Poems – they don’t have to be serious. You might have read some of Roald Dahl’s revolting rhymes – perhaps you could try writing your own one? Some poets also write about how they are feeling.
  
• A diary – if anything funny happens you might want to write it down to make you smile later, and it can help to write your feelings down when you are sad too.

Collages are when you take lots of different pictures, shapes and materials and stick them altogether to make a wicked piece of art. You can stick anything on there as long as you think it looks cool. When you put the last piece on it will be really satisfying to see what you have created.

Here are some top tips:

• Keep all the magazines and newspapers people bring in for you – you can then cut out pictures from them to stick on your collage.
  
• There will probably be a play room you can use in the hospital – ask a member of staff if there are any materials stored in there that you can use.
  
• It doesn’t have to be pictures on your collage – you can stick different types of material in colours that you like.

It can take time to make things – whether its jewellery or model cars. So hospital can be a good time to do things like this.

Set yourself a challenge to make presents for your friends or family, or a new model to display in your bedroom.

Here are some ideas for things to make:

• Bring your beads with you for your hospital stay and make bracelets or necklaces – try something a bit more complicated so it fills up the time.
  
• A model set, like a car or spaceship. With most model sets you can build them a bit at a time, so you don’t have to do it all at once. When it’s done you should feel very proud of what you have made.
  
• Lego is fun to build, and once you have done it one way, you can take it apart and try something completely different!
  
• If you are into Games Workshop, you might want to have a go at painting some of your more fiddly figures – with your full attention you will be able to get them perfect, down to the eyelashes and fingernails!

Board games are a fun way to get you playing with a whole group of people, and designing your own is a great project.

You can choose the layout of the board, decide on your own rules, and then get making. Your board could resemble the swamps of the Amazon, or a mysterious ghost town.

You can create your own rule cards and set booby traps for the players. It might take some time, but when it’s done you will be games master!