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.
But I digress.... Our new addition is of the kitten variety. I am not a pet person and neither is my husband. He was raised with dogs and cats and chickens and horses and cows and I'm sure even a pig or two, but he is not a pet person. I had a hamster when I was about three and we had a dog named Jim Morrison when I was 16 or so. Aside from a few tries with fish, those are all the pets my family had. We just aren't pet people. Our kids, however, are pet people... or at least they want to be. They have been begging for a dog or a cat since they could talk. I have always said that we would get a pet when all of the kids could feed themselves and were potty trained and we live on a piece of property where the pet could roam (we are DEFINITELY not indoor pet people). Well, we are almost to that point (depending on the day with the potty training) and we live on a farm, and I haven't come up with another good enough reason to postpone the pet adopting...
This morning, when we woke up at 5:00 to get the first kid off to school, the kitten meowed and meowed through the open window until John and JJ went out and played with him. When they left the kitten meowed and meowed through the open window until the other two finished getting ready for school and ran out to play with him. The way I see it, we have two choices... either give this one back, thereby inciting a kid riot, or give in and get a friend for this kitten, thereby giving me two more things that I'm responsible for keeping alive - UGH...there's a reason why I have silk plants in my house and why my kids learn to make their own sandwiches by age 3.
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