Depending on how old your child is, you sometimes often wonder, hmm, what can I do with my kids?

No? You don’t think that? How about this?

“MOM/DAD, I’m bored!” Better? I think 98.9999% of parents hear this from their kids at least, mmmmm, all day! Makes you want to pull your hair out, doesn’t it?

And what are the responses that we, as parents, normally tell them? “Go play outside, Go play in your room, or go play with your siblings!” Most of the time, when we have the time, we ask, “Well what would you like to do?” and then we either get that doe in the headlights look, an “I don’t know,” or worst something that us parents REALLY don’t want to do.

My daughter is 11 and when she was small (roughly 3 or 4 years of age) it was the smallest things that piqued her interest……..For about an hour or so. But, it got her to not be so “Bored.”

Here are some things that I improvised (before I had Pinterest). My daughter was 3 when we started this, and it was fun up until 5!

For music, I would sit cross legged, and she would lay somewhat cross my lap with her arms up over her head, head facing the ceiling. I then would hum/sing Beethoven’s symphony No. 5 while mimicking as if I was playing on the piano, on her body. Especially around the mid-section, tickling her in the process. I then would “mess up” and say that some things needed to be tuned. So, I would tickle her feet, pretend twist her toes, fingers, nose and ears and then tried the symphony again with confidence that the problem was fixed. We would play that for hours. She really loved the tickle part. When she was young, she couldn’t quite get out Beethoven’s name so she would say, “Mommy, do the Dum, Dum, Dum on my belly.” Then we would start all over again. Even at 11 she still tries for me to do it, but now she has too long of a torso for me to even reach her toes, face or hands. Yep, she’s a tall one!

Art- was very simple, simply because she was coming into that age of pre k, kindergarten and first grade. So, with some construction paper, safety scissors and Lots and I mean lots of glue! We would make all sorts of weird animals, people, each other, and different objects resembling something like a car or a house or something.

Board games were another big thing for my daughter. Connect four, Candy land, Guess Who, Trouble and Hi HO Cherry O, where big help. How, they helped her to count, sort out by color, following rules to each of the games, (although I think she tuned that out because I swear, she cheats all the time!)

Reading, was a challenge, still is for me, if I may be honest. With me trying to get my daughter to read was like wrestling a hog just to get a fine hair out of its ear! So, with the short stores and interpret different voices just to make it interesting.

Science, now we did this in the winter but what we did was take different cups of water, then mixed it with food coloring. We then filled many ballons, (I’m talking about four or five bags of ballons) with the colored water, then sat them outside to freeze. The next day we would cut the balloon and place the orbs out into the snow and tried to find as many as we could before a certain time was up. Mind you I had to get up early to go hide those orbs. It was sort of like an Easter egg hunt but in the snow. Whomever collected the most orbs got to pick the movie for movie night with hot coco. (Regardless, both teams won!)

Now, that she was a little older, we signed her up for softball. That right there is self-explanatory. Everyday rather she had practice or not she always, and still does, want to either play catch, hit the ball, pop ups or grounders.

The main thing is, always be engaged with your kids, no matter what. It could be the simplest of things. Who knows you guys could actually starting a family tradition or a hobby together. You never know what it will lead too.

There are millions of things to do with your kids, so get those creative caps on and get going. Because honestly, I don’t think they care of what all you do, it matters that you do the project with them.

Let me know as to what you guys do with your kids, that you all enjoy.

Till next time, enjoy!