32 Ways to Keep the Kids Occupied

Great Ideas for Indoor Activities: Story time, Giant Easel, Wax Creations, Old Clothes, Puppet Show, Kitchen Fun, Mini Worm Farm, Jewellery, Create A Picture, Board Games, Ghost Stories, Growing A Seed, Indoor Crazy Golf.
Great Ideas for Outdoor Activities: Ribbon Sticks, Garden Fun, Picking Berries, Organize a Treasure Hunt, Vegetable Patch, Nature Walks, Borrow A Pet, Camping Out, Toy Sail Boats, Neighbourhood Walk, Ring Toss.
Great Ideas for Travelling Activities: 20 Questions, Word Play, I Went To Market, Find the Place, Car Colours, Alphabet Soup, Personal Bags, Travel Diary...

Growing A Seed:
Kids of all ages love this one, because it's not just sticking a seed into soil and hoping it will grow. This way you can tell when it starts rooting.
Get a paper towel, fold it into a medium sized rectangle then dampen it. Put the seed between the 1st layer and the rest of the damp paper towel, and place the whole lot into a small plastic bag. A Ziploc sandwich bag works great for this.
Use a strip of masking tape on the bags with each child’s name on it so they can check on their seeds progress. Close the bag and put it kind of dark but in a place where kids can walk up to check on their seeds and see the wonders of nature in action.
Indoor Crazy Golf:
Get the kids to sit down together and design a crazy golf course to run throughout the house (or just one room if you might have problems getting them to clean up afterwards). Use toys, bathroom stuff, kitchen utensils or anything else at hand to create the “holes” and routes.
Small plastic golf sets are easy to come by in most toy shops, and they’re usually extremely cheap. Have treats ready for whenever a child reaches the end of the golf course.
Great Ideas for Outdoor Activities
Ribbon Sticks:
For this you need nothing more than some strips of wide ribbon and some bamboo sticks. A few 4ft sticks will do. Snap them in half and tie a length of ribbon to one end. Make the ribbon length no longer than what the kids can handle.
Let the kids loose with the sticks and tell them to try to make shapes, circles, and snakes etc just like the gymnasts do on T.V. My 8 year old who has ADHD absolutely loves this one, and it’s one of the few things he’ll actually do for longer periods of time.
Garden Fun:
Buy a cheap plastic double sided sandbox for the garden. Fill one half with sand and the other half with water. Add a whole lot of kitchen utensils and containers, and the kids will occupy themselves for ages.
Make sure you always cover the sandbox when the kids are done, or you might find that your neighbour’s cats may think it's their litter box...
Picking Berries:
Find a place with lots of berries, be it blackberries, strawberries, redcurrants, raspberries or whatever and go berry picking for the day. Sometimes you may have to pay for the berries, but there are a lot of places where berries grow in the wild and are free to pick and use.
Kids LOVE picking berries, so take this chance to make it into an educational thing by bringing along a book about berries. This way you can teach them which berries are safe to pick and which ones they need to stay away from. Use the berries you pick to make desserts, jams and cakes. Scrumptious fun!
Organize a Treasure Hunt:
This can be done in the house, garden, park or even on a short walk. Hide some small items, toys or sweets in various places. Draw up maps with "X Marks the Spot" and easy to follow directions.
Let the hunt begin!
Vegetable Patch:
If you have a garden, or access to one, see if you can get the kids involved in making a vegetable patch of their own. Seeds are pretty cheap and a lot of vegetables are extremely simple to grow and cultivate.
Try with carrots, lettuce leeks, spring onions and pumpkins for starters. Herbs are also really easy. Some extra simple ones are watercress, parsley, chives and basil.
Nature Walks:
Nature walks are one of the most inexpensive boredom busters ever created. All you need is energy and wide-open eyes. Of course, you can make the whole walk a lot more interesting by having something specific to look for.
Luckily for townsfolk and city people, nature isn’t just about being out in the country. Wherever there are trees, there’s going to be birds. Where there’s grass growing, flowers and weeds grow etc.
Borrow a book about wild flowers, birds or animals from your local library and refer to it every time the kids see something of interest. Take along a notepad and pencil for each of the kids to write down what they saw on the walk.
Borrow A Pet:
A great way to beat boredom in the school holidays is to get the kids involved with animals. If you don’t own a pet of your own, you could offer to look after the schools gerbils and rabbits, or for that little bit “