Whether you are still quarantining or limiting your contact with others, you are spending a lot of time with your kids and your kids are complaining about being, “Bored”. You have become a school teacher, personal chef, exercise coach, and activities director! Ugh, who signed up for that?!  Your child is used to structure and they may be struggling with boredom, so here are some fun ideas to break up the routine.

Younger Children

• Set up an obstacle course
• Go on a nature walk
• Storytelling with Rory’s Cubes
• Read stories together or watch videos of people reading stories online
• Shake instruments to music
• Create your own shaker instruments with containers and rice or beads
• Use tape to make a maze or racetrack where you can push cars along
• Play games that incorporate your child’s executive functioning skills like hiding a toy under a blanket and having them find it, or pulling pipe cleaners out of a colander
• Build a fort with Amazon boxes and decorate it
• Make a sensory bottle filled with water, baby oil, soap, food coloring and any other items you’d like to add and shake it
• Fill up a ziplock bag with shaving cream or water and squish it
• Use a cookie sheet with shaving cream and have kids play
• Fill a small pool with water and soap and give your child sponges to play with
• Engage in sensory play by filling a bin with sensory items (water and bath toys, balls, sand, dry pasta, shaving cream, etc.)
• Use pipettes to squirt water or paint onto paper
• Create a scavenger hunt by hiding items throughout your living room or backyard
• Marble paint: place paper in a container, add paint, and marbles, and shake! The marbles will create lines of paint across the paper every which way
• Make a DIY slime or play-doh (for less mess, place in a ziplock bag and squish!)
• Put on a show with sock puppets or dolls
• Make something with cardboard
• Make masking or duct tape creations
• Draw thank you cards
• Blow bubbles and pop them!
• Hide objects in a large bowl of rice and have your child try to dig them out
• Place metal objects into a container and use a magnet to lift them out
• Drop pom poms down a paper towel tube and have your child put them back into the top
• Play interactive role playing games like store, school, or house. This is a great bonding activity and will encourage your child to have conversations with you
• Build a tower with LEGOs or blocks
• Press cookie cutters into the carpet to make imprints
• Use sidewalk chalk to create art and games like hopscotch
• Make a lap book or some other project-based learning activity

Older Kids/Teens

• Have your child assist you when cooking or baking in the kitchen
• Allow your child to cook dinner one night a week
• Try to learn new things (a foreign language, how to play guitar, how to crochet, etc.)
• Go through a family album or old pictures with your child
• Make picture colleagues
• Make video series
• Make a family video
• Make thank you cards
• Gratitude journal
• Take on a woodworking project; teach kids about tools and measurement, make a birdhouse or figurines
• Work on a project together (declutter the closet and donate old clothes, work on the car in the garage, re-organize the kitchen)
• Work on a building or yard project together
• Paint a room
• Redecorate
• Teach your kids about investing, stocks, etc. and then have them monitor their investments
• Earn money in the neighborhood doing gardening, lawn cutting
• Have a family game night
• Make a bucket list for life together
• Play a video game together
• Play card games
• Read books together and discuss them
• Assemble a model together (airplane, spaceship, etc.)
• Have a nerf battle or water balloon fight
• Volunteer to deliver foods to underprivileged children who are out of school right now

All Ages

• Play board games together or work on puzzles
• Make art, do handiwork, sew, or knit
• Make a craft
• Decoupage a mason jar and turn into a vase
• Make collages with old magazines
• Meditate together every day
• Grab a ball and play kickball in the backyard
• Create arts and crafts together with unused school supplies or items from the recycling
• Use a virtual meeting service (Zoom, Skype, FaceTime) to reach out to family and friends together
• Go for a ride together to a town or city you’ve never been to before
• Build a fort together or camp out in the living room as a family
• Go through you and your child’s old things together and donate what could make someone else happy to charity
• Send handwritten letters and cards to nursing homes, hospitals, shelters, and any other organization who could use some warmth during this time
• Take a virtual tour of a museum or zoo online
• Have a dance party with your favorite songs
• Have a movie night together with popcorn and snacks
• Research and read about a new interesting topic
• Go to the beach or go hiking together
• Go bike riding
• Take a virtual class online
• Do yoga or exercise with the family
• Do a social distance meet up with friends sitting in your cars
• Play low-contact sports like badminton or tennis
• Go boating out on a lake together
• Go to the beach
• Make bundles full of supplies and food for the homeless and deliver them
• Have a karaoke night
• Start planting seeds in small cups or pots and watch them grow
• Do something crafty
• Make messy art
• Have a social distance backyard cookout with one family

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