50+ Interesting and Free Activities For Kids Today (Boost Kids Creativity)

It is a very difficult task to provide children with unique knowledge along with entertainment. Many times I have seen many parents searching for lots of things on the Internet that will provide their children with entertainment as well as good learning. Today I am going to tell you 52 free activities for kids today that your children will surely like and will also increase their enthusiasm.

When it comes to children, we wonder what free activities they like? What promotes the enthusiasm inside them? We start asking many questions to ourselves.

We know that children start learning a lot from a young age. As a parent, we have to prepare our children in such a way that they can face the problems that come with their growing age. Many times we see that many parents played games with their children as activities. But only small games and entertainment cannot boost your child’s brain development. There are many physical activities that they should learn from a small age.

We suggest in this topic are many outdoor activities for kids and many indoor activities for kids. All activities help you to how to encourage and boost children’s creativity and Mind Power and IQ Level.

Come, Today we tell you such activities for kids near me that your children will definitely like.

Read All 50+ Free Activities For Kids Today

1. Reading

In the opinion of most parents, I’ve asked, the number one preferred alternative free activities for kids today to watch television for their children is reading.

Why Read?

Reading does several things far better than television:

Reading stimulates creativity. Children must think about the details of a scene or a character, even though a description may be provided by a book-thus envisioning clothing, facial gestures, sound of the voice, surrounding environments, and action. What they envision is invariably far richer in detail and depth of characterization than are the images presented on most children’s programs.

Reading allows children to absorb a story at their own pace. Time-outs can be taken for daydreaming. The story can be picked up and put down at will. Children have control over the story – rather than the television set dictating the pace of action. Furthermore, they can reread a story as often as they like.

Read Together: Reading is an activity that unites parents and children. Read to your children. (Even older children will enjoy reading a book by a parent for a few minutes a day.) Ask them to read to you. Make books a part of your conversations. Go to the library together each week. Build a library for your children’s favorite, traditional, beautifully illustrated, and best-loved books. It will be a treasure they will value even more as the years go by.

2. “Make-Believe” Play

Encourage your children to make up storylines and to act out the plots they create:

Makeup characters.
Give both voice and words to characters.
Adopt mannerisms and costumes for the characters.
Create sets or “stages” on which their characters might act out dramas.
Engage in action sequences.

Exploration: Make-believe play isn’t designed for performance or for review by adults (although the wise parent occasionally will unobtrusively watch kids at such play for signs of aggressive or inappropriate behavior). This play is simply for children’s pleasure in exploring the world.

Children must be taught to play in this way. Sit down with them periodically and help them make up stories using toy props. Teach them how char actors engage in dialogue. Give them ideas for a setting, such as a fort made from a card table, a roadway made from lined-up blocks, or an entire house contained in a bedroom or outlined in the dirt outside. Prime the pump of imagination.

Back to Reality, All is a reality to a child; Some children have difficulty differentiating the fantasy world of their creation from the real world. Encourage make-believe play but continuity ally call children back to reality when playtime is over.

3. Group Games and Sports

Send your children outside to play whenever possible. Provide sporting props and they will soon find that outside action play is more fun than watching sports on TV.

Various activities are appropriate for kids:

Baseball or softball. Or kids can play catch without bats and bases.
Soccer. It has rapidly become the sport of choice for children under ten.
Basketball. If you don’t have a hoop, your children can set up a trash can as a goal and even substitute a soccer ball for a basketball.
Frisbee throwing. Your children may want to make up a Frisbee “golf course” or a Frisbee version of shuffleboard.
Foursquare or two square. This bouncing ball game is popular on school playgrounds.
Croquet. Kids can adopt a baseball bat and ball to play
Jump rope. Lots of different jumps and related rhymes and songs are possible.
Marbles and jacks. These games can be played indoors, too.

Nerf balls, made of Nerf foam, are good for children from young ages to teens. Play with these items results in far fewer bruises and broken windows. Nerf sets for softball, field hockey, golf, Ping-Pong, and other sports can generally be used for indoor play as well as outdoor play. With swing sets, tetherball courts, and other outdoor activity sets (which may include slides, rope ladders, and other climbing accessories),

kids can burn up excess energy. Add a net to the play action and you can create a variety of games and sports in your yard, on your driveway, or in your apartment house, parking lot or patio areas, such as tennis, volleyball, badminton, a soccer ball version of Ping Pong, and other games create your children.

Advantages: Games and sports help children develop motor skills – both large muscle and small muscle – as well as hand-eye coordination. Children also learn the function of rules and concepts of fairness. Encourage cooperative play rather than competitive play. Also, encourage your children to let all playmates have a turn or be part of a team. Group games and sports teach children that not all people have equal skill levels and that one can have fun even if he isn’t the biggest, fastest, or best at a sport.

4. Cooking

Cooking is the one skill children can use all their lives. No matter what they choose as occupations, they’ll always need to eat.

Basic Skills Cooking can be a parent-child activity. Even young children can measure and stir. As they mature and hand-eye coordination develops, ask them to make a salad, mix a batch of cookies, or bake a cake. Your children will take pride in a task that is accomplished successfully and will enjoy both eating the finished product and receiving the praise of family members. Teach your children to read a recipe.

Teach them basic cooking techniques such as how to crack open an egg, turn pancakes, and measure staples. Teach your children how to use basic kitchen appliances and utensils, including knives. It’s amazing how much they can prepare in a microwave, given a little instruction.

Let your children help you with various kitchens activities for kids near me, such as sorting through the beans before soaking them.

Staying Safe Teach your kids what to do if a fire erupts (in other words, how to use the fire extinguisher that should be located in your kitchen pantry) what to do if they burn or cut themselves and how to safely use an oven and a stove.

5. Puzzles

Children can spend hours… and hours… and hours… working and reworking puzzles.

Puzzles for Tots For the little ones, select wooden puzzles with knobs. Puzzles are made of lots of materials these days, from wood to plastic to foam to furry fabric. Your children can explore the different textures.

Three Dimensional Puzzles Rubik’s Cubes and small metal puzzles can keep children occupied for hours at a time. They’re good take-along toys as the kids accompany you on errands.

Word Puzzles Puzzle books for children come in specialized themes or feature a specialized type of puzzles, such as jumbled-letter, crossword, and secret code puzzles. And with them, your kids will learn new vocabulary words, develop perception skills, learn to follow rules and puzzle protocols, and gain practice in spelling.

Art Puzzles These puzzle types include mazes, connect dots, and hidden pictures.

Riddles Invest in a simple to read riddle book and let your children make up their own games as they quiz each other.

6. Animal Care and Training

Watching and playing with their pet will benefit kids more than watching Lassie on TV. Furthermore, the care and training of a pet can be a time-consuming activity that leaves little time for wondering what’s on the tube.

Type of Pet: In addition to cats and dogs, you may want to consider these pets:

Fish Children can be taught and then be required to take on the responsibility of feeding ing the fish, cleaning the fishbowl, and maintaining proper water chemistry.

Birds: Cockatiels and parakeets can be trained in amazing ways. Again, it should be the children’s responsibility to clean the cage and supply fresh water and food.

An ant farm: Although these sealed, self-contained units require no maintenance, children can learn from watching the ants at work.

Guidelines: Chanel Choose a pet suitable to the ages and levels of maturity of your kids, their temperaments, the area in which you live, and your willingness as an adult to help shoulder the responsibility for this particular pet. Keep in mind that kittens become cats, puppies become dogs, bunnies become rabbits, and cute little yellow ducks become big white birds Ducks, chickens, rabbits, and large animals are probably best left to farms and homes with sufficient acreage. Whenever appropriate, let your kids have a say in choosing the pet. They will feel more responsive ability for a pet they help to pick out.

Responsible Ownership: Give children the primary responsibility for the care and training of the animal. A pet will develop children’s patience and compassion. A pet will teach them the limits of behavior. Furthermore, in the ongoing care of and interaction with a pet, your kids will learn about the need for proper medical care and preventive health care, about the attributes of loyalty (and that loyalty is a two-way street), about procreation and birth, and about the need for practice and more practice in developing habits and physical skills.

Pet Visitation: You may choose a pet that your children visit. The pet may be a horse boarded at a farm a few miles from town, a special animal in the petting zoo, which you have affectionately named and consider to be part of your family “even though the animal lives elsewhere, or an animal that belongs to a relative. Regular visits are a fun alternative to TV! Consider taking your kids to a pet show, especially a show featuring their type of pet, such as a dog show, cat show, and so forth. They will get to choose their own favorites.

7. Hide and Seek

By playing hide-and-seek, kids develop perception skills as well as gain a sense of control over play-action (especially when they hide themselves or an object).

If you are playing along, or if your time for play is limited, make sure your children understand that they must respond to your call or designated signal. This is especially important if you are playing outdoors or in an unfamiliar location. Also, make certain that at least one person stays as a home base at all times. All participants should be able to find their way “home.”

Just as much fun as playing the “human” version of hide-and-seek can be playing I, Spy. A designated object in a room is selected as the goal of the game, and each person asks questions that lead to its identity.

8. Library Exploration

Your local community library has far more than books. Encourage your kids to explore the library fully. Take them there for an occasional outing.

Tapes: Ask about collections of audiotapes or videotapes. Sometimes you can find rare tapes of early television programs, special concerts, documentaries of special events in history, or science programs. Many times, these are unavailable in the video stores. The best news is that they can almost always be checked out free or at a reduced fee. Sometimes viewing or listening rooms are available.

Visual Aids: Ask about slides and other collections of visual material. Research an upcoming vacation or help your kids with projects about faraway places.

Computers: Many libraries have computers with a wide range of educational software packages for public use.

Periodicals: Browse through the periodicals section. You’ll find many more titles there than at any newsstand. Look for magazines that specialize in an area of interest for your kids. Children’s magazines are frequently available.

Nonfiction: Consider going to the library with a specific list of questions or topics for you and your children to look up together in the nonfiction section. Wander the stacks together in search of “the answer.” Don’t wait for a homework assignment. Be enthused about learning for learning’s sake.

9.Collection Building

Most children seem to be pack rats. Frequently, the “precious things” take on a certain similarity or tend to focus on a particular interest. Voila! A child has a collection!

What’s in It? A child can build a collection of virtually anything:

Stamps
Butterflies (or other insects)
Rocks (highly polished or as found, cut or whole, gemstone or garden variety)
Shells (exotic or beach fare)
Coins (although this is frequently too expensive for a child’s collecting, apart from pennies)
Dolls Teddy bears (or stuffed animals in general)
Old keys Stickers Postcards.

10. Typing Practice

Typing is a prerequisite to success in various fields, especially in the world of computers (including word processing, marketing, economic forecasting, scientific formulations, and statistical monitoring).

Furthermore, your budding high school and college students will find good typing skills to be a lifesaver when they have to prepare term papers. Some students might even turn those skills into a part-time job or a way to help friends.

11. Radio

Radio and television may seem like brothers, but in fact, they are more like distant media cousins.

Radio engages the imagination in a way that television cannot. Just ask a person who grew up listening to radio dramas. To be sure, the Shadow does know, and each person has a version of what falls out of Fibber McGee’s closet!

Several stations periodically play radio dramas, and cassette tape series of some of those old shows are available in many public libraries. If they aren’t in yours, you may be able to convince your librarian to order them for you or to request them through an interlibrary loan.

There’s more to radio, of course than music, news, and drive-time talk shows.

A Police Scanner: Children may listen to live-action as it happens “out there somewhere” in the nighttime hours.

Science Kits: In addition to listening to the radio, many children accept the challenge of making radio sets. With various science kits, a child may build a radio receiver.

Walkie-Talkies: Walkie-talkies are a variation on the radio theme. You may want to encourage your children to learn Morse code and to practice sending and receiving coded messages over small radio units connecting bedrooms within your home or connecting the bedrooms of other children in your neighborhood.

12. Bubbles, Kies, and Paper Plans

Bubbles kites and planes can be a part of make-believe play. Kids can explore the possibilities of storylines that include flying.

Bubbles: Send your children outside with a jar of bubble juice and a few large and small wands (including a plastic ring-style holder that connects a six-pack of aluminum cans), and watch them make and blow bubbles.

Various bubble-making devices on the market include a toy camera that blows bubbles through its “lens” and other equipment that creates strings of small bubbles. Some of the larger and more elaborate wands are packaged with booklets that tell how to make oversized and unusually shaped bubbles. (Note: Small children should be closely supervised when blowing bubbles. Bubble juice isn’t for drinking!)

Kites: Right along with bubbles in the arena of wind play toys are kites. Visit your local toy store and you’ll quickly conclude that kites aren’t what they used to be. There are multiple kites and kites for trick flying. Some require quite a bit of skill teenagers will be challenged!

Kites generally require some assembly. Kite making provides yet another exercise for kids in learning to follow instructions.

Make sure that your kids know kite-flying safety rules and that they have plenty of open space in which to fly a kite – far away from electrical wires, television antennas, and trees.

Paper Planes: Encourage your kids to try their hands at making paper planes. With certain kits, children can make fairly large planes. They can learn engineering at a very practical level as they build a plane and experiment with flying it. Although they are expensive and definitely not for young children, motorized planes that are maneuvered either by guide wires or by remote control devices can teach various skills. Again, open space is required away from crowds.

13. Museums and Galleries

Museums Your kids will be fascinated by a visit to a museum that features.

dinosaur bones and other prehistoric exhibits.
exhibits of props and costumes from well-known children’s movies.
exhibits with working parts. A number of science and technology museums have special areas in which children can conduct on-site experiments.

Some museums are designed for children. Ex habits are presented simply with explanations that children understand, and there are lots of hands-on activities. Look for them as you travel on vacation. Or if you live in a large city, visit them periodically.

Galleries: Although young children may get bored in an art gallery, older children will enjoy the occasional visit, especially if you see a limited number of paintings that you’ve researched and discussed in advance. The paintings and pieces of the sculpture will have more meaning for children if you’ve talked with them about the life and times of the painter or sculptor.

Every child is an artist. As a kindergartner, a child excels in painting. As you explore fine paintings, talk them over with your children. Get up close and look at how the colors are put together. Ask questions about the paintings: ask your kids to choose favorites and then tell you why they made those choices.

Other Exhibits: In many ways, a zoo or an aquarium can be considered a gallery. And what child doesn’t love a visit to see the animals and fish. Go often. Your children will discover something new each time. Take advantage of special exhibits that come to your city, for example, a car show or a boat show.

14. Parlor Games

What They Can Play Teach your kids to play the familiar favorites, and occasionally play these games with them:

Checkers and Chinese checkers
Chess
Monopoly (consider, too, the fairly new version of Monopoly for children)
Card games (such as Rook, Old Maid, Fish, Authors, or 21)
Scrabble or Scrabble Junior or other word games Trivial Pursuit ( also with children’s versions)
Pictionary Other board games (such as Candyland, Uncle Wiggly, Chutes and Ladders, and Sorry!).

New games are being invented all the time. Periodically explore your local game store or toy shop.

15. Research Projects

Closely related to library visits are research projects. These can take on several forms for children. Always begin with their interests or questions. Stimulate their curiosity and then help them find answers on their own.

Resources: Most questions or topics won’t require kids to delve into all these resources. At other times, they may want to read entire books on a subject or take a course of sorts in a field.

Use Reference Books: Find out what is said in books and encyclopedias. Consult a dictionary frequently. Teach your children to look up words they don’t understand or know how to spell.

Use Maps: When a nation is mentioned on the news or at a church missions conference or in a conversation, find it on the map. Discuss the importance of its location and note its proximity to other nations. Use a variety of maps to explore the culture, topography, and natural resources of the area.

Travel: As you travel, stop by national monuments and parks and enjoy the programs available for public viewing. Your children can learn from these free exhibits and media programs.

Diversions: Research projects, of course, don’t need to focus on academic subjects. Your kids may be most interested in pursuing sports trivia or looking up the answer to a question about a hobby. For that matter, a shopping trip can provide an exercise in comparison research as you and your kids look for the best buy (weighing such factors as price, quality, durability, serviceability, and so forth).

Family: Tells children about a family tree. They can discover their ancestors as well as learn more about the nation and continent where their ancestors once lived.

16. Scrap Books

By working on a scrapbook choosing items, organizing them, gluing them in, and so forth children develop a sense of design, priorities, and likes and dislikes. Making a scrapbook requires creative choice and involvement with the subject matter, neither of which is required in-depth by television.

Personal Interests: Is one child a sports enthusiast? She might keep a scrapbook of photos and newspaper articles about her accomplishments or those of her favorite sports figures.

A young child can create a scrapbook on a particular topic. Give him old magazines so that he can cut out pictures of airplanes, cars, flowers, horses, puppies, or any pictures he likes. After all, it’s his scrapbook For “my house” scrapbook, your child can create rooms and choose different styles and items that she’d like to see in her dream home.

Christmas Wishes: Do you receive a lot of mail-order catalogs at your house? Let your children cut them up to create their own “biggest and best just for me catalog” filled with all of their favorite things. Pursue this activity as Christmas looms on the horizon. However, be sure to remind the children that just as you don’t buy everything you see in catalogs, so you aren’t going to buy them everything you find in their catalogs.

Contents these items: A scrapbook could contain any of these items.

Favorite photographs with time, place, and people or objects labeled.
Ticket stubs and programs of events your child has attended as well as ones in which she has had a part.
Newspaper clippings related to your child or to events, friends, or community happenings that your child considers important or memorable.
Items that mark special events, such as the first baby tooth that your child loses, a name tag from a special event, a first airline ticket, a photocopy of your child’s first paycheck, a dried flower from the corsage your child is given before a special dance or party
Original creations, such as poems or small pieces of artwork.
Postcards of places visited or places your child dreams of visiting someday.
Ribbons, medals, and certificates” prizes” your child receives, certificates of membership, baptism, confirmation, and so forth.
Special letters, perhaps from noted public figures beloved relatives, or a respected minister or priest

17. Golf

Golf is a game for children from three to ninety-three. It’s a game that both men and women can play, and they can play together. It’s a game that can be played alone or in groups. It’s a game that is gaining popularity worldwide. It was once a game of the socially elite, but it’s now a game that has become a social equalizer.

Alternative Games: The general game concept of golf can be adapted to other equipment. For example, the kids may set up a Frisbee golf course with a shallow pan or bucket as the “hole” to hit from the various tee-off points. A small golf-style course may be set up with marbles. They may play a large-scale version of soccer golf, use a soccer ball instead of a golf ball and a basket turned on its side as a whole.

18. Watching

Kids should be observers of more than the animated box in the living room.

Bird Watching: Children of all ages can use a pair of binoculars to watch neighborhood birds, especially when nests are being built, eggs are hatching, and young birds are learning to fly. Help your kids identify birds of different types develop their interest in the variety and unusual aspects of the natural world.

Weather Watching: Teach your children to read the weather signs in nature; they are just as interesting as the weather reports on television. Children can learn the names of clouds and the types of formations that frequently lead to snow, rain, or violent weather. Give each child a stint at being the personal family weather reporter.

Teach them to read a thermometer and a barometer, and place versions outside. Invest in a rain gauge and teach your kids to measure precipitation. They may want to keep a log of weather watching activities perhaps charting temperature, cloud conditions, and whether a day is sunny or cloudy.

Your kids may observe natural weather predictors apart from the phenomena in the skies such as the growth of bark on trees, the distinctive chirping of insects, the behavior of animals before storms, and the growth of an outdoor ani mal’s fur coat. Give your children the current Farmer’s Almanac and see what interesting

Star Watching: Your children can spend prime-time hours exploring the real stars instead of viewing the stars on prime-time television. You can get them started with an inexpensive telescope and a chart of the stars. You may want to include a moon calendar that shows the moon in its different phases every day of the year.

Learning about the stars gives your kids an ap preference for the vastness of the universe and the precision of the seasons as they come and go. They may want to keep a chart of daily sunrise and sunset times and notes about “falling stars,” orbiting satellites, and other night sky phenomena.

Watching Other: Just about anything can be watched. Position your young child’s playpen in front of a sliding glass door with the drapes drawn so he can watch all of the doings of the yard or neighborhood. Animals can be watched as well as birds; look for squirrels in the trees or deer that come near the backyard for food in the winter. As you travel with your children, make “people watching” a part of your family activity. Of course, this doesn’t mean staring.

19. Music Practice

It’s Daily. It’s noisy and sometime discordant.

And sometimes, it seems like forever before one senses a degree of progress. But music practice does more than giving a child a level of skill in reading music and playing an instrument.

Lessons: Music practice

develops the discipline of the daily variety. Insist that your child agree to practice if you are going to pay for lessons and that your child practices without complaint. Not everything in life is fun all the time, and not everything in life can be accomplished in a day. Both are valuable lessons.
Should be scheduled, generally on a daily basis. The scheduling of practice time teaches time management.
encourages a child to set goals and to break them down into subgoals to accomplish them. For example, the child’s goal may be to learn to play the entire score of “The Entertainer. A subgoal may be a certain scale or “run” or segment of the piece.
Is self-rewarding and self-reinforcing. A child generally knows when he plays the wrong note, squeaks or squawks, or misses fingering. A task until it is formed to successfully builds patience, perseverance, and a sense of personal accomplishment.
Enhances eye-hand coordination (and in some cases, eye-hand-and-foot coordination).
helps your child discover more about potential, inherent traits and abilities, and the correlation between practice and performance.

Learning to play a string, wind, or percussion instrument prepares your child for interacting with others in a band, an orchestra, or a musical ensemble.

Vocal training is a suitable activity for children. Participation in a children’s choir is a great learning experience.

20. Plays, Others Live Events

Dramatic Performance: Churches, schools, and community theaters regularly present plays, musicals, pageants, and variety shows, many of which are suitable for family viewing. (If you have a question about the content of a show, call in advance.) In addition, some communities have a children’s theater season. Mimes sometimes frequent city parks or zoos. Puppet shows always appeal to children.

Other Events Although you may not think of them in the same category as a Broadway musical, circus acts offer drama and a high degree of showmanship. Take your kids to the circus.

Watch for traveling shows with characters your kids may recognize – such as the annual Sesame Street characters in concert or a Disney review performance.

Children are delighted at the antics of the Harlem Globetrotters more show than an athletic event. And an Ice Capades performance showcases skills on the ice.

Children of all ages never tire of certain ballet programs, especially “The Nutcracker.” Don’t be surprised if you find your kids trying some of the moves they see the dancers make.

Many children are fascinated by a live performance of opera vignettes. They often sit spellbound at the power and potential of the human voice.

Live performance shows your children that mistakes and flubs are parts of real life. The perfection of television isn’t the norm. This realization frees many children to take risks and to try their hands at new activities related to music and drama.

21. The Park

Live-Action A park is a good place for your kids to run and get rid of the pent-up energy of the day, and

To greet friends who seem to frequent the park about the same time you do each day.
To note the changing of the seasons.
To watch birds and squirrels. to fly kites.
To yell and scream as much as they want.
To collect pebbles and leaves and twigs. To play group games and sports.

The park is a good place to go when home or the yard or the balcony or the patio is too small a place to play.

22.Sewing Projects

Beacuse Sewing Projects involves a noumber of steps, your kids develope a wide range of skills.

Making choices. Choosing a pattern and fabric and matching accessory items (such as buttons or trims) is one giant exercise in de vision making and creativity.
Following a prescribed set of instructions. As children learn to read and follow a pattern, they learn about sequencing.
Doing work precisely. Sewing is a skill that challenges kids to do high-quality work and to learn when it’s best or necessary to rip it out and try again.

Along the way, the eye-hand coordination is developed. Perseverance is required. And the completion of a job well done (and an item of clothing or interior decoration) becomes a point of accomplishment that enhances self-esteem.

Sewing projects help children become aware of their bodies and likes and dislikes. Over time, they develop a personal concept of style, which they may express through what they sew.

Other Projects:

Lacing and Weaving
Needlework, embroidery, and cross-stitch.
Knitting and crocheting
Quilting

Several easy, quick-to-finish projects are marketed so that your children may gain more immediate gratification.

23. Memory Work

Memorizing can be an activity with rich divi dends. Your children will be far more adept at learning lines for a school play or pageant and will become more comfortable speaking aloud in front of others. Self-confidence and self-esteem will grow as they see that they can commit some thing you consider important to memory.

The passages children memorize enrich their thought life. The passages can give rise to new ideas, provide comfort in times of crisis or sor row, and be a part of thought processes as they weigh a decision.

How to Do It: Teach children to break down a passage into short segments and to build one passage upon the next like building blocks. Encourage them to repeat and repeat and re peat a phrase or passage in committing it to mem ory. Give children an opportunity to rehearse what they have learned before you in a nonthreatening atmosphere.

24. Craft Projects

By completing quality craft projects, children de velop a sense of self – worth, of accomplishment, of pride in a job well done. Craft projects build the abilities to follow instructions and to put objects together in a way that is structurally sound and aesthetically pleasing. Craft projects stimulate creativity. And they give you opportunities to spend quality time with your children.

Examples of Craft Projects: Kites, Wood Working, Gifts, etc.

25. Rest

Teachers frequently complain that students are too tired to concentrate in class. One of the fore most reasons is that they’ve stayed up too late watching television.

Insist that sleep has priority over a TV program. With the occasional exception of a special program, set a bedtime for your kids and stick with it, no matter what’s on, how many other children will be watching the show, or how exciting your kids are certain a program will be.

Television programs frequently stimulate chil dren and put them in a “hyper” mode mentally and emotionally, which makes sleep difficult. Turn off the television set well in advance of bed time.

26. Chores

It might be making the bed or changing the sheets on Saturday morning.
It might be cleaning out the bird cage or chang ing the puppy’s water daily.
It might be dusting the furniture or pushing the vacuum sweeper in the hall once a week. It might be mowing the lawn or raking leaves.
It might be scouring the bathtub.
It might be loading or unloading the dish washer or setting the table for supper each night.
It might be emptying the wastepaper baskets.

Lots and lots of activities can qualify as chores. Chores are activities that are scheduled, as signed, and periodie (generally daily or weekly). And the scheduled assignee is 100 percent re sponsible for them.

27. Bicycling

Bicycling helps children acquire balance. They get a sense of control and power as they choose where to pedal and how quickly. As your children exercise, they explore the neighborhood and spend time with other children.

28. Map Making

Teach your children to read maps and to make maps. And then challenge them to map out their lives.

Make a map of your town. Obviously, a lot of details may be omitted. Ask your children to include the things significant to them.
Make a map of school. They will feel com fortable starting a new school if you visit itfirst and make a small map of it for them to study.
Make a map of your church or synagogue. Teach the correct names of various parts of the building.

29. Church

Participate in a church regularly. Make atten dance a part of your family’s weekly routine. If your particular church does not have a program aimed at communicating with children, either start one or find a church that has one.

30. Listening

Earlier, we addressed the idea of improving an atmosphere of peace and rest in your home. This chapter emphasizes the need for kids to develop listening skills something they can’t do with the TV blaring in the background.

Music: Listen to music with your kids. Don’t just have it on as background noise. Acquaint them with truly great compositions. With re peated exposure, they will anticipate certain mu sical phrases and passages.

31. Creative Writing

Making up stories is an alternative free activities for kids today to watching the stories that others have written for television. Writers learn by writing. As your kids write, they’ll learn more about the fine art of storytelling, about how to express themselves creatively, and about the differences in literary genres.

Example: Poems, Disney Songs, Scripts, Word Plays, Computer Literecy.

32. Water Games

An alternative to TV viewing may be as close as the nearest water faucet.

Bathtime: Soap crayons are fairly new on the market; at bathtime, kids can turn the tile or fiberglass walls around the tub into an art canvas. Various water toys, including washable dolls, wa ter pumps, and sponge building blocks, are fun and safe for bathtub play.

Examples: Car Washing, Pool Play, Toys, The Garden Hose.

33. Exercise

Even beyond the playing of sports and engaging in physical activity is exercise. Although you may think that children are always on the go, the real ity is that a decreasing percentage of our nation’s children qualify as being physically fit. While par ents are jogging or working out at a gym, their children are frequently at home mesmerized by the family television set. Yoga is best example for exercise.

34. Creative Performance

Challenge your children and their friends to pre-pare a performance.

Play: such as Thanksgiving or the Fourth of July. Let your children suggest one based on a holiday theme,

write the play.
design the costumes.
create the props and sets.
make up the programs.
do fliers for distribution to family members and friends.
design lighting and special effects (including selection of musical interludes).
choreograph or block moves. conduct rehearsals.

This activity may take several days.

Variety Show: Encaurage each child to work up an act.

Concert: Your children may want to create a show based on their favorite songs and come up with their own choreography and lip syncing per formances of them.

Puppet: Show Socks decorated with yarn and buttons will do for puppets. Again, children make up their scripts and develop their characterizations, sets, and special effects.

TV Show: Given the technology of the age, the performance your kids and their friends cre ate may very well be a videotape. Older children are adept at using camcorders, especially with adult supervision. Encourage them to develop a video script and then shoot it in sequence (to avoid editing) after carefully designing each seg ment and rehearsing it fully.

Parade: Although not always considered a performance, a parade qualifies as an event that requires planning and showmanship and prompts audience applause. Suggest that your kids and their friends create a neighborhood parade to in clude all the children.

Neighborhood: Fair Children can put to gether booths and invite the neighbors to admire their handiwork and artwork, view their collec tions, buy their cookies and cakes, and play their games (from darts to fishing with magnets for small prizes). Pets in cages, of course can be admired and judged in a pet show competition. Prompt your kids to come up with a way to make every entry a winner.

Competitions: Children can plan and spon sor a neighborhood, church group, or club tour nament a chess tournament or a swim meet, their own version of the Olympics (with such team sports as handball, and such individual sports as a fifty yard dash ), a marbles, jacks, or yo-yo competition, or perhaps a contest for mud castles. Again, prompt your children to find a way of applauding each competitor.

35. Nature Walks

Go for a walk. A walk provides a means of exer cise and a release from the stress of the workday (including the workday spent doing housework). And a walk provides a time together for children and adults.

Talk: Notice things around you as you walk. Comment on them. Point out new or unusual things, including the blooming flowers, the branch that fell during the storm, and various signs that indicated a change of season.

You can also talk over the day. Explore what went on in your kids’ lives even as you explore your neighborhood.

36. Model Making

Through model building, children

learn to follow instructions. Models must be built in sequence.
develop patience. Painted pieces must dry before they can be glued together certain glued together pieces must dry before they can be combined. The process can take many days.
learn perseverance. When children stick with a task until it is finished, they reinforce habits of discipline. The completed projects build up self esteem and confidence.
develop small motor skills. Models require precision and manipulation of small pieces.

Cars and Planes: By making model cars and airplanes, children can learn about the work and design of the real things. In addition, they can learn about twentieth – century history as they make planes and cars representative of certain eras. (Models of planes and cars are yet another type of collection your children might want to build.)

37. Journal Writing

A Journal Cand Take Many Forms

Diary. Diaries are places to note feelings as well as events and activities.
Dreams. In a journal, a child can sort out recurring, disturbing, or frightening dreams.
Lists. Sometimes the lists can be of feelings, activities, names of friends and others encoun tered at school and play. Sometimes the lists can relate to goals and ideas and future plans.
Questions. The journal may include a section of questions that a child is pondering.

Permit your children to keep their journals per sonal and private. Don’t snoop. If you are also keeping a journal, you may want to share a por tion of it from time to time, which opens the door for your children to share theirs with you. Emotions and ideas are best expressed. When they are retained, they can erupt into frustration, anxiety, worry, fear, doubt, or other types of dis tress. Journal writing allows kids something that television inhibits: the opportunity to create words and give voice to the inner sell.

38. Practice Ranges

Practice may not result in perfection, but children will certainly get a lot closer to it if they do practice. Tennis Do you have a budding young tennis player in your family? Take her to a court that has a backboard against which she can hit. and hit … and hit. Buy a bucket of used balls from a local tennis club and let her practice her serve until she is satisfied with her performance. Do you have a child interested in baseball? Save your quarters and let him spend time at a local batting range. Golf Is your child learning to play golf? Both practice putting greens and driving ranges are available.

39. Scouting and Other Groups for Children

Television is most often a solitary, passive activity for children. Channel your children’s abundant energy, instead, into something that is active and that includes other children. Few alternatives are as valuable or as personally rewarding as mem bership in a Scouting organization.

Organizations: Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts prepare youngsters to feel a sense of responsibil ity for their communities, a sense of control over their own safety (both in the city and in the wild), and a sense of community with their peers that is positive, nonexclusive, and rooted in service.

Camp Fire Boys and Girls is another fine program, with virtually the same benefits as Scouts and an emphasis on WO- HE-LO… work, health, and love.

Royal Rangers is a church based organization, as are several others you may want to explore for your children

40. Conversation

Turn off the tube and talk to your kids. You may all be amazed at what you discover.

Don’t have the television on during mealtimes. Use meals as a time for family communication. Linger over the dinner table and talk.

Let every person share the foremost events of the day and explore related feelings and opinions.
Discuss and evaluate events or experiences you’ve shared as a family.
Plan future events and activities as a family.
Share the news of the day. “Did you hear about?” And “Did you hear the news today that?” Are opening lines for con versations that can be far-ranging in topic from international political news to reports of new inventions and scientific discoveries to the announcement that a frequent used nearby road is being closed for resurfacing.

Humor: Conversations frequently erupt in laughter. Make jokes and amusing stories and anecdotes a part of your conversations. Family members that laugh together are rich indeed. Converse.

as you travel by car.
as you run errands around town.
as you sit in waiting rooms.
as you prepare meals together.
as you work on home related chores with your kids.

Your children will develop both listening and speaking skills and will gain in self-respect.

41. Seasonal Sports

Activity is a key word. Television offers action but not activity. Kids need to spend growing-up years in motion. Turn your sports fans into participants.

Activities: Fishing, Playing with Snow, Water Sports, Leagues, Lessons.

42. Art Projects

Art projects can keep kids busy any time of year. Crayons and paper are musts for children. You may also want to supply a large pad of colorful construction paper, blunt – end scissors, glue, and an easel.

Consider these projects for your kids:

Painting with water colors or tempera paints.
Working with clay, Play Doh, or plaster kits.
Drawing with a Magnadoodle, Etch a Sketch, or other drawing kit.
Designing cars and other vehicles with a child’s version of a T square and templates
Making designs on paper with rubber or sponge stamps, stickers, and glitter.
Using a colorforms kit for experimenting with designs and colors.
Designing clothes.(with help from a kit)

Other Works: Face Painting, Collages, Classes, Recycling, Making a Place.

43. Treasure Hunts

Do your children ever come to you and moan, “We’re bored”? Challenge them to create a trea sure hunt. The point of the hunt, of course, is for children to move from clue to clue to find a hid den treasure. A treasure hunt is an excellent birthday party activity (with the treasure being the cache of birthday presents hidden someplace in the house while the children pursue clues out side). A treasure hunt is also a good rainy day activity. You may want to surprise your children with a treasure hunt of your own creation from time to time. Put out several clues that lead to a new ac cessory item, cassette tape, or other small gift item. Let them enjoy the thrill of the hunt.

44. Computer Work and Play

Your kids probably think that computer games are the next best thing to television. Indeed, on the distant horizon one can envision the day when computers and high density television sets will allow for interchangeable software.

For now, you can rest assured that most of the skills they acquire by playing computer games are good ones. Eye hand coordination, quickness in decision making, and a certain amount of rea soning skills are enhanced.

45. Gardening

Give your kids a plot of earth they can call their own…

It might be a sandbox that becomes a “dirt box.”
It might be a windowsill garden box just out side the bedroom window.
It might be several rows in the backyard that are turned into a family vegetable garden.
It might be a designated flower bed.
It might be a few small containers for grow ing herbs.
It might be a large container on the balcony or deck.
It might even be a small “greenhouse” kit. On the other hand.
It might be an acre of the family farm.

46. Creating Special Places

Permit your kids to participate in a learning group of their own choosing apart from the for mal school structure:

A gymnastics class.
A ballet class.
A tap dancing class.
An art class.
An aerobics class.
A baton twirling class.
A cheerleading class.
A drill team class.
A consumer awareness class.
A self-defense class.
A cooking class.
A series of drama lessons offered in the neighborhood park.
A class that teaches good manners and social graces.
A choir A band An orchestra.

47. Videos

The Good that the good news about videos is that

They are generally free of disruptive com mercial messages.
They can be stopped and started by the chil dren, who retain some control, therefore, over the storytelling pace.
They can be previewed by parents prior to viewing by children (and at hours that suit parents).

48. Letter Writing

Encourage each child to adopt a pen pal:

A friend with whom letters are exchanged across the neighborhood
A child in a foreign land.
A soldier.
A cousin who lives in a different city or state.

Your child will develop language skills as well as a sense that the world really is a small place. What to Write Offer a few ideas about what to write: (1) friends, (2) family, (3) holiday customs, (4) sports, (5) favorite pastimes, (6) pets, (7) activities, ( 8) school, (9) books, and (10) goals in life. Encourage your child to ask ques tions, too.

49. Room Cleaning

Children are born knowing how to clean. They must be taught how to vacuum, dust, clean win dows, remove spots, and scrub bathroom sur faces. Children must be taught how to make a bed, hang up clothes, and pick up objects. And they can learn these skills at an early age, most effectively by working alongside you as you clean.

50. Decorating and remodeling

Children can help you with decorating and re-modeling projects around your house or apart ment, and they will be especially interested if those projects involve their rooms.

Teach your teenager how to make curtains, throw pillows, and perhaps a slipcover or bed spread.

Show your teen how to put up a shelf, paint the trirn around the windows, and paint or wallpaper a wall (and perhaps add a wallpaper border).

Explore with your kids different ways to arrange their rooms. Ask them periodically to help you rearrange other areas of your home.

Conclusion

I hope you and your children really much much like free activities for kids today which are defined by Amazing Story. I hope your children perform all activities and increase their creativity, Health, and Mental Strength. They also develop their many skills like Writing, Conversation Art, and more. We always suggest to every parent if your children like any type of activity then please encourage them. Like, your children like to singing or playing guitar or draw a Picture then encourage him or her to do more and more.

If your children want to read bedtime stories then check our Home Page. We write the best bedtime stories for your kids. Bedtime stories help you to make your children’s night beautiful. Your children sleep well.