Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Boredom Busters

Now that we are into the long part of winter, I got out some of my boredom busters with my kids and I thought I'd share the ideas.


Idea 1:
This idea was inspired by my Grandma who saved little containers for us grand kids to play with when we came over. She still has them to this day and now my kids always ask to play with them when we visit her. So I decided to save some containers too...what a cheap toy huh? I saved various sizes and shapes of containers with lids and put them all in a big container like an ice cream bucket to store them. I tell the kids to match the lids and then they have to try to stack them on top of the big container. They have a blast! My Grandma would make bubbles, suds, for us to play with in the containers on summer days, so I'm looking forward to trying that too once the warmer weather comes.





Idea 2:
I saved a plastic fruit tray that has the dividers in it thinking it would be a fun sorting game. So I looked around for what to sort and decided to get some colorful pom-poms. My younger kids learn their colors as we take turns sorting our pom-poms. The middle section is our rainbow section that we use when all our colors are sorted. The kids also have had fun laying out the pom-poms in a big line, circle (for jumping in) and I have used it for teaching them their shapes too.








Idea 3:
I read about this idea in a children's idea book. It's called the "To Do Bucket." I used an old powdered lemonade container and decorated it with markers. Then I printed out a bunch of strips of paper with things to do on it. Not all of them are "fun games." Some of them are chores.

Here are some ideas that I put in ours.
~ Play with play-dough
~ Go ride your bike
~ Play a V-smile game
~ Write a book/draw a picture
~ Go swing
~ Build with legos
~ Build with blocks
~ Make a blanket tent
~ Clean out the van (I LOVE it when they get this one :)
~ Wash the dining room windows
~ Organize the videos
~ Wash the dining room chairs
~ Clean under your beds
~ Read a book
~ Call Nana

...Etc.. The rule is, whatever you pull out, you have to do, unless mommy says otherwise. It's a great way to get them excited and motivated to do chores and also to play with toys, like blocks, that sometimes get forgotten about. In fact, when Luke pulled out wash the living room windows, he and Melissa got inspired and went throughout the whole house cleaning windows :)



Idea 4:
I made up several scavenger hunts. Indoor and outdoor ones. Here is an example of both:

Outdoor:
~ smell 3 flowers
~ draw a picture of one of the flowers
~ Find a person and wave hi!
~ Find something behind the shed.
~ Go down the slide 3 times.

Indoor:
~ Find a ball.
~ Find a blanket.
~ Run around the basement kitchen 3 times.
~ Do backwards somersaults across the living room.
~ Open the front door and ring the door bell 1 time.

They love these and want to keep doing them! The neighbor kids get into this too!
This is a glimps of how I try to keep my kiddos busy!!!

2 comments:

Valerie Hunter said...

Ooohhh....good ideas! I'm stealing some! I have plans to make some "I Spy" bottles. I just have a bunch trinkets that don't have any purpose, so I'll fill an old juice or gatorade jug with sand and drop them in. The kids have to shake and roll the bottle to find the "treasures".

Jim and April said...

i love it! your such a great mom! I hope I can remember these for if I ever have kids!