Boredom Busters During The School Holidays
If you have kids of school age, you may be on the lookout for some boredom busters during the school holidays.  My kids are always excited the first day of a school break, but by the second day they are whining about how bored they are.  How two kids who have just about every gaming system, televisions, toys, books and who knows what else can be bored is beyond me.  Now that they are 11 and 14, I have gone beyond my usual response of “You’re smart, I am sure you can find something to do” and now say “If you can’t find something to do, I can always use help with the laundry and dishes”.  Boy does that get them looking for something fun to do!  I know that even if you have a lot of stuff, you can still get tired of using them and I can’t continue to be a non-participant in my kid’s fun.  We decided to go on a search for some fun things to do that are not our usual go to activities.  We found some really great suggestions and I wanted to share a few with you in case you could use a few good ideas as well!

Boredom Busters During The School Holidays

Cook Something: My kids and I love to cook together, but we don’t always think to break out the recipe book. I am passionate about training my kids to be productive adults, so to teach them to cook is a must.  Caitlin had gotten really great about offering to cook and Henry loves to crack eggs and whisk batters!  We decided to have breakfast for dinner last night and we all jumped in and helped make the eggs and pancakes.

Make Something: If this is winter break, get your kids to bring out their arts and crafts supplies and make some holiday decorations.  We have an assisted living facility nearby and it is so much fun to make cards, paper chains and other holiday decorations for them.  This not only breaks up the boredom but it sure does lift the spirits of someone who may not have family nearby.

Play A Game: Get out the Monopoly and start rolling those dice!  I love a good game of Scrabble and since we home school Henry, we can sneak in some schooling without him knowing it!  My kids are avid readers, so therefore they have a great range in their vocabulary, so it makes playing the games that much better.  Caitlin and her dad love to work a crossword puzzle together which is sweet to see them bond over that.

Pick Up A Book: When was the last time you read to your kids?  Most of us probably quit reading to our kids when they were in elementary school, but I found out recently that they still enjoyed having a story read to them.  We also will take a story we like and change some of the contents to make it fresh.  Recently we received a package from education.com, a wonderful company that makes learning accessible, fun and interesting.  Education.com is a website that is filled with so many great avenues for educators, parents and kids than any I have seen.  Being a mom who home schools, I have seen a ton of educational websites and education.com is by far the most rich in quality content I have come across.

Activity Boxes For Kids

I have heard about and even tried a few activity boxes for kids.  It is awfully convenient to have a box of fun show up on your door step!  How cool is giving your kids a box of fun and you didn’t even leave the house to get it!  The Wonder Box is an amazing and my opinion, wildly successful off shoot of education.com.  On its own, education.com has a plethora of activities, worksheets, reasonably priced workbooks and a huge database of questions and answers for just about every subject you can imagine.  Wonder Box is a monthly subscription service that includes 3 projects for your child 3-6, all the materials you need and several themes to choose from.  Although Henry is 11, with his autism, he is in the 6-8 range when it comes to products like these.  Henry needs simple activities that have easy to follow and clear cut directions to enable him to have the satisfaction of creating a masterpiece without any help.  The monthly box we received had a ton of cool items in the box.  We received a story cape with shiny satin on one side and muslin on the other with crayons to decorate the cape.  We also got the book “Stone Soup” which also came with story cards that had the best illustrations I have seen.  The other project was a cute felt puppet kit that was bright and colorful and so dang fun.  Henry had the most fun with his Wonder Box.  I am usually able to get him to pose for a picture but for this review, he was being very camera shy!  In my opinion, for $19.99 per month, you are getting a box full of things your child will dive into the moment the box enters the room!

One reader will win a Wonder Box ($19.99)

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87 COMMENTS

  14. I LoVe the “Once Upon a Time” Wonder Box. My grands would be absolutely thrilled to receive this! 🙂

  16. I love a lot of the workbooks for my older kids and our home schooling program.I love the nature box and know my youngest would have fun with it.

  17. I love a lot of the workbooks for my older kids and our home schooling program.I love the nature box and know my youngest would have fun with it.

  18. I love a lot of the workbooks for my older kids and our home schooling program.I love the nature box and know my youngest would have fun with it.

  56. i like the worksheets for preschool you can print out. i started doing this with my soon to be 4 year old! 🙂

  70. The WonderBox that arrives monthly is a great idea. It incorporates a nice variety of activities. The traveling games section on their site has some really good options.

  85. Hi – I messaged you on FB about the 1st Entry and you said to take the entry (just a reminder in case I win).

    Thanks so much! You have such a great blog and the best giveaways! Don’t know how you manage it all!

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