Nothing makes me crazier than listening to my kids complain about a lack of things to do. So a few years ago, I came up with my own version of the boredom jar. I initially had an actual jar with slips of paper, but it didn’t work for my kids because they kept losing or destroying the little slips of paper.
So we have moved to a laminated list that I hang up on their bulletin board.
However, there are tons of options to do the same basic thing. You can do popsicle sticks in a jar, pieces of paper, little stock cards, you could color code the cards for indoor and outdoor activities, you could make two separate jars, the possibilities are endless!
If you are looking for the Ultimate Guide to Surviving Summer, please check out my other blog post.
Things to Do When You’re Bored for Kids — Inside
- Activity Sheets. There are tons you can find on Pinterest and print out.
- Board games
- Craft
- Puzzles
- Bake
- Build with Legos
- Build a Fort with blankets + pillows
- Make up your own play to perform
- Dance Party
- BINGO. You can make your own bingo cards and use little pieces of paper to draw from.
- Cards (Old Maid, Go Fish, Solitaire)
- Paper Mache
- Make Playdough. Simply add 1 part conditioner to 2 parts of cornstarch. Add food coloring if you want. Good for hours of fun!
- Make your own slime
- Make a friendship bracelet
- Finger Knit
- Camp out in the living room
- Make your own puppets
- Put on a puppet show
- Make your own stuffed animal using socks, ribbon, + yarn
- Brain games + brain teasers
- Video call relatives
- Magic show– learn magic tricks
- Origami
- Make your own story/ book with illustrations
- Make your own newspaper
- Still life photography using phone or tablet
- Memorize all 50 states
- Play Name that Tune
- What am I thinking of? Use clues to guess movie, tv show, movie character. You can play this with almost anything, colors, numbers, places, etc.
- Make paper dolls
- Charades
- Paper airplanes
- Make a robot from odds and ends
- Make your own ice cream.
- Make masks from paper plates
- Science experiments
- Draw a comic
- Finger painting
- Q-tip painting: Use a q-tip as your brush and paint away!
- Make a movie with phone/tablet
- Paper rock scissors
- Tell ghost stories
- Make something out of leftover cardboard boxes + odds and ends
- Play salon/ barber shop
- Decorate t-shirts w/ puffy or glitter paint + fabric markers
- Flashlight tag
- Memory Game. You go around in a circle saying a word (it can be categories) and then the next person says their word and then adds their own to it, you keep going around and around until someone misses the word or gets it wrong.
- Face Paint
- Draw silhouette with flashlight and tracing paper
- Tic Tac Toe
- Musical chairs
- Hot potato
- Salt Dough Ornaments + figurines. All you need is 2 cups of all-purpose flour, 1 cup of salt, and 1 cup of warm water. Mix it all together and boom– dough. We use this every year to make Christmas ornaments, but you can make anything ya like. When you’ve finished your masterpiece, you bake it at 250 degrees F, until it’s dry (usually an hour- 2 hours depending_, then we paint it. Simple and fun!
- Make a paper chain
- Play Freeze Dance. You have one person run the music. Everyone dances and one person stops and starts the music. When the music’s on everyone dances when it stops everyone freezes. Whoever doesn’t freeze quickly enough is out.
- Create Stories or Plays.
Things to Do When You’re Bored for Kids — Outside
- Hide and Seek
- Play with Sidewalk chalk
- Campout in the backyard
- Slip-n-slide
- Splay in the sprinklers
- Go to the pool
- Play at a friends house
- Bubbles
- Basketball- Soccer- Catch
- Ride your bike
- Rollerblade
- Ride Scooter
- Play 4-square
- Hoola Hoop
- Tag
- Red Rover
- Foot race
- Make your own obstacle course
- Relay races
- Potato sack race
- Go for a walk
- Simon says. A game where one person is “Simon” they call out instructions. If they say “Simon says” before it the other players can complete the action, if the caller doesn’t say “Simon says” and the other players proceed with the action, they are out.
- Mother May I. You have one person designated as “mother”. S/he will stand about 30 feet away from the line of other players. The other players will take turns asking “mother” if they can take X many steps forward. Mother may say yes or no. The point of the game is to get to mother. If a person forgets to say, “mother may I” before they ask for their number of steps, they have to go back to the start.
- Scavenger Hunt
- Frisbee
- Have a picnic
- Jump rope
- Make/Fly a kite
- Treasuer Hunt
- DIY Birdfeeder. You take a toilet paper roll, add peanut butter Peanut Butter and then roll it in birdseed. Simple and easy! Bonus, you can hang it outside a window and bird watch!
- Collect rocks and paint them
- Nature scavenger hunt
- Water balloon fight
- Squirt gun fight
- Broom hockey
- Kiddie pool fun
- Pick flowers
- Egg Drop
- Leaf Rubbings. You collect a series of leaves. You put a piece of paper over the leaf, take a crayon or pencil and rub over the paper where the leaf is sitting under it. You end up with some really cool pictures!
- Flag football
- Climb a tree
- Yoga
- Make a time capsule
- Look for Ladybugs+ butterflies + caterpillars
I hope you’ve enjoyed these. If you have any go to games or ideas that your kids love, please comment with them below!
