As we end another week at home, you may be looking for new, fresh ideas to keep your children from boredom. Here are 15 non-screen activities that are sure to keep your children busy and having fun. Let us know which ones are your favorite.
- Chalk Town: Using chalk, draw and create your own town in your driveway. Create roads, parks, gas stations, bridges, railroad tracks, and more.
- Minute to Win It: Children love Minute to Win It Games! These games are guaranteed to bring laughter and fun. Options are virtually endless on what to do within a minute. One idea: See how many cheerios can you stack on a noodle within a minute.
- Tree mail: Children are missing their friends so here’s a great idea to bring some contact with each other without risking health. Place a cooler or box on a fence between your homes. One child puts a note in the cooler for their friend, and vice versa.
- Dance parties: Who doesn’t love a fun, silly dance party. Bobby Bones Show has dance parties every Friday morning at 8 a.m., and they’ve curated all these playlists on iHeart Radio. Turn up the music and bust out your best dance moves.
- Secret messages: A fun activity for rainy days. This activity only needs paper, markers/pens and a cell phone. Friends can write secret messages to each other. Assign each letter a symbol/color and then write a message using the symbols. Take a photo and text it off to your child’s friends/friend’s parents the other friend(s) get to solve it.
- Solar Oven: Soon we can start cooking outdoors with solar. Here’s a tutorial on how to make your solar oven. Make sure your solar oven is pointing south for maximum light.
- Learn about clouds: Take a walk and learn about the clouds above you. Then go home and make your own cloud.
- Make butter in a jar: Perfect activity for children with a lot of energy. All you need is heavy cream, salt, a mason jar and a marble. Here’s a tutorial on how to make the butter. The fastest we’ve seen this completed is 8 minutes. Most kids take at least 30 minutes of shaking the jar to get butter.
- Heart Project: Families across the globe are putting hearts in their windows as a sign of love and hope to their neighbors and those passing by. Help us spread love and show us your hearts.
- Olympics: Test your long jump, high jump, throwing and other skills. Post your results and challenge your friends to post their scores too.
- Master Chef: Playdough version. Get out the Playdough and let the kids get creative! Set a timer (5-10 minutes), give the kids a topic like breakfast and they can create anything their little heart’s desire. You can do multiple rounds. Play for fun or compete to win a sweet treat.
- Easter Egg Hunt: Give your kids plastic Easter eggs and have them take turns hiding and finding them.
- Pen Pals: Spend time writing notes and postcards to family and friends who are farther away. Video calls are nice too, but it’s always exciting to get a letter in the mail.
- Rock for joy: Next time you’re outside, gather rocks that would be perfect for painting. When you get home, paint the rocks. These rocks can then be placed near the end of your driveway as people walk by. They are guaranteed to bring a smile to your neighbors.
- Scavenger hunt based on color or letters: This activity can happen outside and inside so it’s perfect for rainy or windy days when you have to stay indoors. Write down a list of items your children need to find by color or letter. For example, pick the color green. Items on the scavenger hunt can range from: find a green sock; find a green utensil; find a green book.
