Back in my craft show days (a whole seven years ago - haha!),
one of my best sellers was "The Boredom Bottle". (The picture above
is off the internet of a journal in a jar that looks like what I used because I don't have a picture of
mine - they are pretty similar, though.) I bought a jar at the dollar store or
WalMart (it doesn't have to be very big - a pint or smaller will work). I
copied the activities on different colors of paper and cut them apart. I folded
them up and put them in the jar. Wah-lah! A Boredom Bottle. (I also had a cute
little label on the front of mine, but that's not necessary - just an
advertising thing I did for the craft shows.)
Because it is summer and our kids are out of school, here is the list of activities in the Boredom Bottle. I tried to make the activities the kind that you could do without having to make a trip to the store. Low cost and high fun! You know my motto - Quick, Easy and CHEAP!!! I'm sure that with the advent of pinterest there are TONS more ideas out there, but these should get you started.
**Thumb wrestle
**Play charades
**Blow bubbles
**Juggle tennis balls
**Read a story
**Play hopscotch
**Make a paper bag puppet
**Bowling with a tennis ball and plastic bottles
**Write a letter to someone special
**Build a tower with toothpicks and marshmallows
**Sing along with your favorite songs
**Play “penny basketball” using your hands for the hoop
**Make a foil family
**Play dress up
**Make a vest out of a large paper bag
**Have a scavenger hunt (indoors or out)
**Finger paint with instant pudding
**Bake cookies
**Play “I Spy...”
**Play “Twenty Questions”
**Make a mural with sidewalk chalk.
**Make a dot-to-dot picture for someone to do.
**Play charades
**Take a walk.
**Play catch.
**Have a picnic (indoors or out).
**Have relay races.
**Have a water balloon fight.
**Put on a play.
**Make paper plate masks.
**Watercolor
**Bake cookies.
**Dance to your favorite music.
**Play “Hide and Seek”.
**Play “Red Light, Green Light”.
**Play Double Dutch with two jump ropes.
**Play hide the beanbag
**Play balloon volleyball.
**Try drawing a picture while blindfolded.
**Play Simon Says
**Make jewelry out of paper clips.
**Have a “bike wash” – it’s like a carwash but with bikes.
**Learn some magic tricks and put on a show.
**Make designs on a piece of paper using a hole punch.
**Make a Hacky-Sack-type ball and play the game – Use a funnel to fill a 7" balloon with dried beans or rice. When it’s nearly full, remove the funnel, tie the end and trim the excess. Stretch a second balloon over the first, tie the ends, making sure the knots are at opposite ends.
**Play “Froot Loop” Air Hockey – Draw a playing field (or big square) on a sheet of paper and place a Froot Loop (or any O-shaped cereal) in the center. Each child gets a drinking straw and tries to blow the cereal into the other’s goal box to score a point. The winner is the first to get five points!
**Make scratch-and-sniff water color paints – Just add 1 tablespoon water to one small envelope of unsweetened Kool-Aid and you’re ready to paint!
**Make homemade musical instruments with a comb and waxed paper or out of toilet paper rolls.
**Shine pennies – Fill a small container with vinegar. Place some unshiny pennies in the container so they are submerged. Pour some salt in and swish the pennies around. Wait about five minutes then take the pennies out. Rinse them with water and let them dry.
**Make pet rocks – Decorate a rock with paint, markers, and “googly” eyes.
**Make Ball Catchers – Using a clean, dry milk carton or laundry detergent bottle, cut the bottom off the container. Then cut a “U” shape under the handle (make sure you don’t cut into the handle). It will look like a scoop. Decorate with tape or paint markers.
**Make a mobile – Use shells, pine cones, buttons, chili peppers, whatever. Use string to make two dowels or sticks into an “X” shape. Tie the objects onto several different lengths of string. Tie the string with the objects to the dowels at all four corners and at different places along the dowels. You can also use a clothes hanger.
**Make flying saucers – Tape two paper plates together. Glue a paper bowl to the top to make a cabin for the crew. Decorate.
**Make “Glurch” – Mix ½ cup white glue and ¼ cup liquid starch in a disposable cup. Stir with a popsicle stick. Remove the Glurch from the cup and knead it until smooth. If it sticks to your hands, mix in 1 teaspoon starch. If it’s stringy, mix in ½ teaspoon glue. Store Glurch in a self-sealing plastic bag.
**Make mud bricks – Mix water in soil until it has a dough-like texture. (If soil is sandy, add one part flour to four parts soil.) Shape into rectangles and let set. Use a wet table knife to cut various size bricks. When stacking bricks, spread a fresh batch of “mortar” between the layers. Build walls, houses, cities.
**Make a piñata – Tape boxes together to make an animal. Decorate with crepe paper, feathers, leaves and tissue paper.
**Make an obstacle course (indoors or outdoors) – Crawl under chairs, through tunnels made out of boxes, walk along a curvy hose or dodge a sprinkler. Get creative!
**Make an underwater viewer – Cut the top and bottom off of a clean half-gallon milk carton. Stretch plastic wrap over the bottom and secure with a rubber band.
**Make an ocean in a bottle – Get a clean plastic soda or water bottle. Fill it halfway with water and add a few drops of food coloring. Add confetti or glitter, shells, small toys, etc. Using a funnel, fill the bottle the rest of the way with vegetable oil. Put a dab of glue around the threads on the bottle top and screw on the cap tightly.
**Make pinecone bird feeders – Cover a pinecone with peanut butter and then roll in bird seed.
**Say Tongue Twisters - try “Six slippery sliding snakes”; “Flat-fish fleets”; “This’ll sift the thistle sifter”; “She sells seashells by the seashore”.
**Go on a newspaper (or magazine) scavenger hunt – Look for things in the newspaper or magazine (such as a picture of a car, a picture of someone with brown eyes, a certain word, etc). After you’ve found the item, pass the magazine to someone else to see if they can find the same thing.
**Make Rainbow Crayons – Remove the wrappers from old crayons and put them ½ inch deep in an empty tuna cans (or a muffin tin lined with foil). Bake the crayons in a preheated 300° oven for 5-7 minutes. Watch them closely, because they melt quickly. Melt them just enough to blend the colors, but not so much that they completely liquefy and meld into one color. Carefully remove from oven and cool for about 30 minutes. When they are completely cool, remove crayons. They should pop out easily when you tap the cans with a knife. If you used the muffin tin, remove them from the tin and peel off the foil.
**See how many different shapes you can cut out of one piece of paper.
**Make Slimy Gunk – Mix equal parts cornstarch and water. If desired, add color. Have fun squishing it and watching it “melt”. Store in a sealed container in the refrigerator. This can be messy, so cover your table or floor before you begin. TIP: Dilute greatly before it is flushed or washed down the drain.
**Make Peanut Butter Play Dough – Mix together 1 cup creamy peanut butter, ½ cup light corn syrup and ½ tablespoon vanilla. Gradually add 1 ¼ cup powdered sugar. Store covered at room temperature.
**Rain painting – After sprinkling a few drops of food coloring onto a plate, put on rain gear and go outside for just a minute, holding the plate in the rain. If you want to, you can use a white crayon to draw designs on the plate before you step outside.
**Snow Spray Paint – Make several pitchers of colored water (six drops of food coloring per container). Choose a variety of “applicators” to take outside (anything with a nozzle will do including a turkey baster and a watering can). Now, paint the snow.
**Make play dough – Mix 1 cup flour, ½ cup salt, ½ teaspoon cream of tarter, 1 cup water and 1 teaspoon vegetable oil in a saucepan. Cook over medium heat until it holds together (keep mixing or it will stick to the bottom of the pan). When the clay is cool enough to touch, knead it on a floured surface, divide it into smaller balls, and add a different shade of food coloring to each ball. Store in an airtight container for weeks.
**Place a smooth board against a chair or couch to create a ramp to roll things down.
**Use masking tape on your floor or carpet to create an indoor roadway for small cars.
**Play indoor baseball with a balloon and an empty gift-wrap roll.
**Drown the penny – Place a paper towel over the water-filled glass. Wrap a rubber band around the top of the glass to hold the paper towel in place. Place the penny on the paper towel in the center of the glass. Take turns poking holes in the paper towel with a sharpened pencil. The game ends when someone drowns the penny by poking the hole that finally makes the penny sink to the bottom of the glass.
**Musical Glasses – Fill drinking glasses with different amounts of water. Lightly tap the glasses with a spoon. Try to play a song or make up your own melody.
**Try drawing a picture by holding a crayon with a clothespin instead of in your hand.
**Funny face – Look for pictures of faces in old magazines. Cut out as many eyes, noses, mouths, ears, and heads of hair as you can find. Mix them up and piece together a funny face then glue it onto a piece of paper.
**What’s for dinner? – Cut pictures of your favorite foods from old magazines. Glue them onto a paper plate.
**Make binoculars by taping two toilet paper rolls together (or a paper towel roll cut in half). Decorate them.
**Make a necklace by stringing macaroni noodles on a string. You can dye pasta by mixing ½ cup rubbing alcohol and food coloring in a bowl. Add small amounts of pasta to the liquid and gently mix. The larger the pasta, the longer it will take to absorb the color. Dry on newspapers covered with wax paper.
**Cut out a paper doll chain. Draw and color the clothes on each doll.
**Make homemade face paint. In a bowl, mix together 1 teaspoon corn starch and ½ teaspoon cold cream until well blended. Add ½ teaspoon water and stir. Add food coloring, one drop at a time until you get the desired color. Using a small paintbrush, paint designs on face. Remove with soap and water.
**Living Room Islands – Put pillows on the carpet for pretend islands. Imagine the carpet is the ocean. Jump from island to island without falling in the water.
Because it is summer and our kids are out of school, here is the list of activities in the Boredom Bottle. I tried to make the activities the kind that you could do without having to make a trip to the store. Low cost and high fun! You know my motto - Quick, Easy and CHEAP!!! I'm sure that with the advent of pinterest there are TONS more ideas out there, but these should get you started.
**Thumb wrestle
**Play charades
**Blow bubbles
**Juggle tennis balls
**Read a story
**Play hopscotch
**Make a paper bag puppet
**Bowling with a tennis ball and plastic bottles
**Write a letter to someone special
**Build a tower with toothpicks and marshmallows
**Sing along with your favorite songs
**Play “penny basketball” using your hands for the hoop
**Make a foil family
**Play dress up
**Make a vest out of a large paper bag
**Have a scavenger hunt (indoors or out)
**Finger paint with instant pudding
**Bake cookies
**Play “I Spy...”
**Play “Twenty Questions”
**Make a mural with sidewalk chalk.
**Make a dot-to-dot picture for someone to do.
**Play charades
**Take a walk.
**Play catch.
**Have a picnic (indoors or out).
**Have relay races.
**Have a water balloon fight.
**Put on a play.
**Make paper plate masks.
**Watercolor
**Bake cookies.
**Dance to your favorite music.
**Play “Hide and Seek”.
**Play “Red Light, Green Light”.
**Play Double Dutch with two jump ropes.
**Play hide the beanbag
**Play balloon volleyball.
**Try drawing a picture while blindfolded.
**Play Simon Says
**Make jewelry out of paper clips.
**Have a “bike wash” – it’s like a carwash but with bikes.
**Learn some magic tricks and put on a show.
**Make designs on a piece of paper using a hole punch.
**Make a Hacky-Sack-type ball and play the game – Use a funnel to fill a 7" balloon with dried beans or rice. When it’s nearly full, remove the funnel, tie the end and trim the excess. Stretch a second balloon over the first, tie the ends, making sure the knots are at opposite ends.
**Play “Froot Loop” Air Hockey – Draw a playing field (or big square) on a sheet of paper and place a Froot Loop (or any O-shaped cereal) in the center. Each child gets a drinking straw and tries to blow the cereal into the other’s goal box to score a point. The winner is the first to get five points!
**Make scratch-and-sniff water color paints – Just add 1 tablespoon water to one small envelope of unsweetened Kool-Aid and you’re ready to paint!
**Make homemade musical instruments with a comb and waxed paper or out of toilet paper rolls.
**Shine pennies – Fill a small container with vinegar. Place some unshiny pennies in the container so they are submerged. Pour some salt in and swish the pennies around. Wait about five minutes then take the pennies out. Rinse them with water and let them dry.
**Make pet rocks – Decorate a rock with paint, markers, and “googly” eyes.
**Make Ball Catchers – Using a clean, dry milk carton or laundry detergent bottle, cut the bottom off the container. Then cut a “U” shape under the handle (make sure you don’t cut into the handle). It will look like a scoop. Decorate with tape or paint markers.
**Make a mobile – Use shells, pine cones, buttons, chili peppers, whatever. Use string to make two dowels or sticks into an “X” shape. Tie the objects onto several different lengths of string. Tie the string with the objects to the dowels at all four corners and at different places along the dowels. You can also use a clothes hanger.
**Make flying saucers – Tape two paper plates together. Glue a paper bowl to the top to make a cabin for the crew. Decorate.
**Make “Glurch” – Mix ½ cup white glue and ¼ cup liquid starch in a disposable cup. Stir with a popsicle stick. Remove the Glurch from the cup and knead it until smooth. If it sticks to your hands, mix in 1 teaspoon starch. If it’s stringy, mix in ½ teaspoon glue. Store Glurch in a self-sealing plastic bag.
**Make mud bricks – Mix water in soil until it has a dough-like texture. (If soil is sandy, add one part flour to four parts soil.) Shape into rectangles and let set. Use a wet table knife to cut various size bricks. When stacking bricks, spread a fresh batch of “mortar” between the layers. Build walls, houses, cities.
**Make a piñata – Tape boxes together to make an animal. Decorate with crepe paper, feathers, leaves and tissue paper.
**Make an obstacle course (indoors or outdoors) – Crawl under chairs, through tunnels made out of boxes, walk along a curvy hose or dodge a sprinkler. Get creative!
**Make an underwater viewer – Cut the top and bottom off of a clean half-gallon milk carton. Stretch plastic wrap over the bottom and secure with a rubber band.
**Make an ocean in a bottle – Get a clean plastic soda or water bottle. Fill it halfway with water and add a few drops of food coloring. Add confetti or glitter, shells, small toys, etc. Using a funnel, fill the bottle the rest of the way with vegetable oil. Put a dab of glue around the threads on the bottle top and screw on the cap tightly.
**Make pinecone bird feeders – Cover a pinecone with peanut butter and then roll in bird seed.
**Say Tongue Twisters - try “Six slippery sliding snakes”; “Flat-fish fleets”; “This’ll sift the thistle sifter”; “She sells seashells by the seashore”.
**Go on a newspaper (or magazine) scavenger hunt – Look for things in the newspaper or magazine (such as a picture of a car, a picture of someone with brown eyes, a certain word, etc). After you’ve found the item, pass the magazine to someone else to see if they can find the same thing.
**Make Rainbow Crayons – Remove the wrappers from old crayons and put them ½ inch deep in an empty tuna cans (or a muffin tin lined with foil). Bake the crayons in a preheated 300° oven for 5-7 minutes. Watch them closely, because they melt quickly. Melt them just enough to blend the colors, but not so much that they completely liquefy and meld into one color. Carefully remove from oven and cool for about 30 minutes. When they are completely cool, remove crayons. They should pop out easily when you tap the cans with a knife. If you used the muffin tin, remove them from the tin and peel off the foil.
**See how many different shapes you can cut out of one piece of paper.
**Make Slimy Gunk – Mix equal parts cornstarch and water. If desired, add color. Have fun squishing it and watching it “melt”. Store in a sealed container in the refrigerator. This can be messy, so cover your table or floor before you begin. TIP: Dilute greatly before it is flushed or washed down the drain.
**Make Peanut Butter Play Dough – Mix together 1 cup creamy peanut butter, ½ cup light corn syrup and ½ tablespoon vanilla. Gradually add 1 ¼ cup powdered sugar. Store covered at room temperature.
**Rain painting – After sprinkling a few drops of food coloring onto a plate, put on rain gear and go outside for just a minute, holding the plate in the rain. If you want to, you can use a white crayon to draw designs on the plate before you step outside.
**Snow Spray Paint – Make several pitchers of colored water (six drops of food coloring per container). Choose a variety of “applicators” to take outside (anything with a nozzle will do including a turkey baster and a watering can). Now, paint the snow.
**Make play dough – Mix 1 cup flour, ½ cup salt, ½ teaspoon cream of tarter, 1 cup water and 1 teaspoon vegetable oil in a saucepan. Cook over medium heat until it holds together (keep mixing or it will stick to the bottom of the pan). When the clay is cool enough to touch, knead it on a floured surface, divide it into smaller balls, and add a different shade of food coloring to each ball. Store in an airtight container for weeks.
**Place a smooth board against a chair or couch to create a ramp to roll things down.
**Use masking tape on your floor or carpet to create an indoor roadway for small cars.
**Play indoor baseball with a balloon and an empty gift-wrap roll.
**Drown the penny – Place a paper towel over the water-filled glass. Wrap a rubber band around the top of the glass to hold the paper towel in place. Place the penny on the paper towel in the center of the glass. Take turns poking holes in the paper towel with a sharpened pencil. The game ends when someone drowns the penny by poking the hole that finally makes the penny sink to the bottom of the glass.
**Musical Glasses – Fill drinking glasses with different amounts of water. Lightly tap the glasses with a spoon. Try to play a song or make up your own melody.
**Try drawing a picture by holding a crayon with a clothespin instead of in your hand.
**Funny face – Look for pictures of faces in old magazines. Cut out as many eyes, noses, mouths, ears, and heads of hair as you can find. Mix them up and piece together a funny face then glue it onto a piece of paper.
**What’s for dinner? – Cut pictures of your favorite foods from old magazines. Glue them onto a paper plate.
**Make binoculars by taping two toilet paper rolls together (or a paper towel roll cut in half). Decorate them.
**Make a necklace by stringing macaroni noodles on a string. You can dye pasta by mixing ½ cup rubbing alcohol and food coloring in a bowl. Add small amounts of pasta to the liquid and gently mix. The larger the pasta, the longer it will take to absorb the color. Dry on newspapers covered with wax paper.
**Cut out a paper doll chain. Draw and color the clothes on each doll.
**Make homemade face paint. In a bowl, mix together 1 teaspoon corn starch and ½ teaspoon cold cream until well blended. Add ½ teaspoon water and stir. Add food coloring, one drop at a time until you get the desired color. Using a small paintbrush, paint designs on face. Remove with soap and water.
**Living Room Islands – Put pillows on the carpet for pretend islands. Imagine the carpet is the ocean. Jump from island to island without falling in the water.
