We hope you will find moments of joy and have FUN with your kids. If you are looking for some ideas…keep reading! We’ve come up with 99 fun things to do at home with your kids!
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Make volcanoes
Use Baking soda and peroxide (food coloring optional)
2. Build a fort
- Put blankets over your dining table – or
- Use boxes, or pillows and blankets.
- Read a story in the fort!
- “Go on a Bear Hunt“
- Decorate with Christmas lights!
3. Play with cheerios
Put play dough on plate. Stick hard noodles on the dough. Pour cheerios on the plate your kids to stack.
4. Balloon games
Blow up balloons and bounce them back and forth
5. Have a “What’s in the Box?” challenge:
- Cut holes a in box
- Choose an item to put inside
- Allow someone to reach their hand inside the box and “guess” what it is.
- Take turns finding items to hide, then guessing “What’s in the Box?”
6. Play hide and seek
7. Create an obstacle course
- Create one in your yard, basement or around your house.
- There are tons of games you can play with cones and bean bags!
- For bean bag toddler games, CLICK HERE.
8. Create your own flip books
9. Listen to a new audiobook
10. Have a movie night
11. Make slime or kinetic sand
12. Set up a pretend restaurant or grocery store
13. Learn a new board game together
My kids started learning “No Stress Chess” at age 5 and it’s given them a love for the game.
14. Help your kids make a stop motion movie on the iPad
15. Take a popsicle bath
{literally, hand them a popsicle in the tub + call it fun!}
16. Have your kids count the money in their piggy banks
17. Go sledding
18. Build a Lego or Megablock castle
19. Have thirty minutes of quiet reading time
20. Have your kids write letters to their friends and mail them
21. Facetime family and friends
22. String fruit loops and make necklaces
23. Make play doh
24. Make letters and numbers on a cookie sheet with shaving cream
25. Turn boxes into arcade games
26. Have your kids create an animal hospital with their stuffed animals
27. Start a puzzle
28. Teach them a new life skill or work on manners
29. Play “I Spy”
30. Learn a new card game
My kids love UNO and Rat-a-tat cat
31.Dino Dig
- My boys love uncovering a treasure, your kids might too!
32. Eat a meal on the floor and call it a “picnic”
33. Blow bubbles
34. Play Charades or download the Heads Up app
35. Make a bird feeder
36. Start building your summer bucket list
37. Set 3 goals with your kids for this year
38. Create a time capsule
39. Find a new musical artist and listen to their albums
40. Play paper football
41. Create a favorite family recipe book
42. Create a masterpiece!
Set out art supplies, markers and paper and create a masterpiece
43. Skittles experiment
Line a plate with skittles, pour hot water in the center and see what happens!
44. Exercise together
45. Bundle up and take a winter walk
46. Use paper towel or toilet paper tubes for a ball maze
48. Add Shaving cream and food coloring to a zip lock baggie
49.Create challenges with ping pong balls and cups
5o. Use Pinterest ideas or YouTube videos to learn how to draw
51. Sticker art
My kids and I love these sticker art books. They are so pretty that you could frame them. Click here to check it out!
52. Read a book together
53. Make a book/write a story
Have your kids write a little each week about what they are doing. (It will be interesting to look back on these journals in the future!)
Another option: Have your kids write 1 thing they are grateful for each day.
Be sure to have them add the date and their name.
54. Cook together
- Lead a HOME EC class that involves learning how to cook! It’s not easy, but it builds confidence in them and is a huge help once they know what to do.
- Here is an easy recipe for – Personal Pizzas
55. Create FingerPrint Art
56. Clean together
- There are so many benefits to giving your kids household chores and teaching them to clean!
- Some bigger things we are working on together – the basement, baseboards, and cleaning our cars.
- Smaller things the kids can do – a junk drawer, the pantry, baseboards, wiping lower cabinets, all door handles, appliance handles, pulling weeds, folding and putting away laundry, bathroom, bedroom, their closet, and loading/unloading dishwasher.
Click here for a “chore chart” idea!
57. Make Friendship bracelets
58. Don’t Eat Pete Game
What you need:
Any small snacks (cereal, candy, tiny crackers, peanuts, raisins)
1 piece of paper and a writing utensil
To do:
- On a sheet of white paper, draw a large grid – nine squares.
- Put a number on each square.
- Put a small snack on each square.
- Have ONE person leave the room.
- Have another person choose which square is “Pete.”
- Ask the person who left the room to come back. He or she eats one snack at a time. When they grab the snack that is “Pete,” everyone screams:
“DON’T EAT PETE!”
Their turn is over.
Repeat as many times as your kids are interested!
Click here to watch and learn.
59. Memorize a verse together.
- Click here for a list of our favorites
- Print verses and hang around the house to practice and memorize.
60. Have a unique conversation
Has months of quarantine left you with nothing else to talk about than how bored you are? Then you NEED this set of cards – click to see.
Each card asks interesting questions for your family to answer or discuss. My kids ask for us to pull the cards out whenever we sit down to eat. One time my kids were eating alone and my oldest son pulled the questions out to ask his little brothers. I LOVED listening to their conversation!
61. Homemade Tap Shoes
Sorry parents, this one’s noisy! It’s so easy, though, and will keep your kids busy!
Simply tape a coin to the bottom of your child’s shoe. Voila, homemade tap shoes!
Get them to come up with a tap-dancing routine, rehearse it and record their final performance (bring your own earmuffs!)
62. Look at old photos
- Take out your photo albums or pull up pictures on your computer and enjoy!
63. Build a Marble Maze / Labrynth
64. Play “Minute to Win It
Click here for ideas
65. Play “Would you Rather?”
Click for questions
66. Learn or Practice an instrument
- Hire a teacher or take a free class on YouTube!
67. Ice excavating
- Place some toys in a bowl of water an
68. Make Ice Cream
- If you have milk and sugar, your kids can make their own ice cream!
- Click here for recipe!
69. Nerf battles and/or targets
70. Create “Ramp Races”
A really fun and simple activity that can act as a physics lesson and opportunity for an experiment. Make a simple ramp using cardboard or a piece of wood, and roll different objects down: measure how far they go, how fast they roll, or hold races between different kinds of balls to see which wins!
71. Create with paper:
- Make paper airplanes
- Paper Snowflakes
- Have your kids come up with their own paper creation!
72. Play with marshmallows and toothpicks
73. Blow Art
- Pour droplets of paint on paper
- Allow kids to “blow” air through the straw to make a cool pattern
74. Play Follow The Leader
- Have each child take a turn being the leader
- Walk all around your house
- Do jumps, turns, stop to hug dad, etc.
75. Mess free coloring
76. Butcher Paper Family Table
77. Fashion Plates or Action Plates
78. Help a Neighbor
Both working and serving can boost your mood!
If you have kids who are 6 and older, they can earn money or serve their neighbors by shoveling, cleaning up leaves, or helping any other outdoor task.
79. Find a new place to explore!
You can look at the website “Only in your State” to find unique places where you live!
80. Pick up a free kit from Home Depot and build something together
- Home Depot has created take home kits for kids
- Go to customer service to ask for one for each of your kids
- My 11 and 9 year old were able to follow the simple instructions and build a battleship on their own. I helped my 6 year old.
- After my boys built their boats, they played with them in the bathtub.
81. Play “Jump the River”
- Place two strings an inch apart.
- Have everyone “jump” across.
- Keep spreading the strings apart until everyone falls in the ‘river.’
82. Play Ball Games
- Put a kid-friendly twist on that classic shooting game H-O-R-S-E by using smaller balls and setting up bins, buckets, and pots around the house or yard.
- Take turns making shots. If a child makes it, the next child has to try to make it from the same spot.
83. Make a timeline of your child’s life
- Make a timeline of each child’s milestones.
- If possible, get some pictures from each developmental stage, and tape or pin them to the appropriate place on the timeline.
84. Tickle tackle
- Stay on your knees in the middle of a room.
- Kids try to run past me without getting “tickled and tackled!”
85. Plan a family vacation or a DREAM vacation
86. Play dress up
- Whether it’s super heroes or princesses, kids enjoy “make believe!”
87. Make shadow puppets
88. Match up your socks, roll them up, and have a sock fight
89.Paint nails or pictures on a cardboard box:
90. Hot Potato Pig
This is a fun and simple games for all ages. Push the pig’s belly, then pass the pig around while he sings. Whoever is holding the pig when he TOOTS, is out. Prepare for lots of laughter as you play.
91. Watercolor Painting or Paint by Number
If you have a budding artist, the paint by number kits are fun!
92. Take an online class
My son just finished a Chess class through Outschool and loved it. Next, they’ll be doing a class to learn how to invest in the stock market. Paul will try a nature class. Clark is going to take a class on investing.
CLICK HERE for for $20 off your first Outschool Class!
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93. Learn to Crochet, Cross Stitch or Knit
94. Make a blanket for your family or one to donate!
95. Create with Perler Beads
This Star Wars set has over 1000 5-star reviews!
96. Laugh together
Get a joke book from the library, buy one, or search for kid’s jokes on the internet and entertain each other.
97. Mad Libs
98. Try an Activity Book
I just purchased this activity book: 101 Outrageously Fun Things To Do and plan to use it over the next several weeks.
99. If all else fails…let them be bored!
Being bored is a natural part of life as a kid. Try not to offer an immediate solution to their boredom and see what they come up with! It’s often in times of boredom that children show their greatest creativity!
Do you have more ideas? Leave us a comment!
Thanks for reading,
Kathryn Egly and the Help Club for Moms team
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