50 Things Kids Can Have Fun Doing at Home
- Let the kiddos make cookies and set up a fun decorating station with cookie cutters and a variety of sprinkles and icing with piping bags. Bonus idea: Set up a camera or smart phone and film a cooking show!
- Play indoor hide and seek. If you have a pre-reader hide sight words and hide different post-it notes around the house and get them to identify/find only one sight word per game of hide and seek. Make sure you have a bunch of the chosen word mixed in with post-its of non-word of the days to teach them to recognize and differentiate.
- Set up some indoor forts at night (homemade or an actual tent. Then play and read under the fort with a flashlight.
- Make some kitchen homemade spa facials and scrubs with ingredients like cucumber, avocado, lemon juice, honey, sugar, salt etc. Kids love to whip up weird stuff and will laugh at how funny they look with the stuff on. This one even appeals to teens.
- Make friendship bracelets and beaded jewelry for the teens.
- Play board games and yes even video games (but with the parents).
- Play with blocks. For older kids there are some pretty advanced sets even some STEM related ones.
- Plan a family garden outside or an indoor hydroponic veggie & herb station.
- Make homemade ice cream.
- If you have a daughter set up an in-home nail salon and try some nail art techniques.
- Dress up in over the top crazy or luxe clothes and have a fancy dinner replete with name cards. Serve the kids fun beverages in fancy glasses like sparkling cider.
- Make slime. Instructions here.
- Most kids love Mexican food so get cracking in the kitchen and whip up their faves together. For the dessert start off earlier in the day and make a piñata for a fun dinner finale. Instructions here.
- Make and blow bubbles. Instructions here.
- Have a yard picnic.
- Teach your pet a new trick.
- Make some homemade candy. There are some surprisingly easy ones like rock candy. Instructions here.
- Girls can make some fun hanging room decor. Pinterest has loads of ideas with pics on this subject. Boys can make paper fidget spinners. Instructions here.
- Create your own bingo cards and have a bingo tournament.
- Create a family tree or make a scrapbook.
- Let your kids write and direct a stop-motion movie. Learn how it works here.
- Learn and play a new card game.
- Ask your teens to make you a playlist of their top 5 favorite songs. They’ll love that you take an interest in what they are interested in.
- Practice origami, or the art of paper folding. Ideas here.
- Buy a canvas and let your kid or teen paint something to hang in their bedroom.
- Play with magnets on a cookie sheet.
- Make a maze on the floor with painter’s tape.
- For little kids: Make a sensory table using a plastic storage bin and fill it with different stuff like shaving cream, rice, dirt, water, etc.
- Get creative in your driveway with some sidewalk chalk.
- Make a time capsule! One day your kids can use it to tell their kids all about this craziness.
- Have a pizza party and make a homemade pizza.
- Make paper airplanes and see whose plane flies the farthest.
- Make your own popsicles.
- Go in your backyard and look for four-leaf clovers.
- Play 20 Questions or Never Have I Ever (Kids only).
- Paint with Kool-Aid. Instructions here.
- Have a tea party.
- Play “The Floor is Lava.”
- Make a water sensory bag. Instructions here.
- Make some play dough.
- Snuggle on the couch and read your favorite books.
- Rearrange or redecorate your room.
- Create a nature scavenger hunt in your back yard.
- Decorate a T-shirt.
- Have a pillow fight. Yes I know it’s silly and simple but it makes for great memories.
- Have a family music night, skit night of impersonations, or play Charades.
- Do a puzzle. This is a great option as it works for every age.
- Don’t follow a recipe and get them to concoct their own drink recipe or dessert. Take the pressure off and call it the Trick or Treat recipe game. If it’s gross it’s a trick. If it tastes great it’s a treat!
- Make a treasure bottle. Instructions here.
- Write a secret message in invisible ink. Recipe for lemon juice invisible ink here.
June 2020 Compiled by GFM