4 Sure-fire Boredom Busters
The best defense for when your kids start hurling, "Mom, I'm bored" bombs your way, is to come heavily armed with crafty ammunition. BabyCenter has an impressive database filled with craftastic activities to help save the day!
Water bottle bowling
What you need
10 recycled water bottles of similar size, colored electrical tape, small ball
Instructions
Wash bottles and remove labels as best you can. Use tape to decorate bottles with stripes to resemble bowling pins. Set up bottles on smooth floor, hallways are best, in V-formation. Use ball to bowl over bottles.
Additional tips
Find someone who knows how to keep bowling score. Watch out for the cat!
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Sock toss
What you need
Clean socks, ribbon, number tags, dried beans, white construction paper, rubber bands, bucket
Instructions
Fill socks with beans, leaving room at the top to secure with tightly-tied ribbon. (Tie ribbon in knot.) Make number tags by cutting circles in construction paper and drawing the number in with a black felt pen. (If you have enough socks you could do numbers 1 to 10 and use this game as number recognition practice.) Thread a piece of string through hole in top of tag and attach numbers by tying the string to the ribbon. Take turns tossing socks into strategically placed bucket. Keep score by adding up numbers in bucket.
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Kitchen sponge boats
What you need
New sponges, drinking straws, craft foam, hole puncher, scissors hot glue gun
Instructions
Trim sponge into boat shape-- pointed at one end-- with scissors. Use craft foam to create triangular sail. Punch two holes, one above the other, in sail for drinking straw mast. Push straw through holes. Make hole towards front of sponge boat with scissors. Push straw into sponge until mast stands straight. Turn sponge over and hot glue straw and sponge together. Find peaceful indoor body of water and set sail. If sponge gets waterlogged, squeeze it.
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Felt fridge magnets
What you need
Felt squares, scissors, oversized buttons, magnets, glue
Instructions
Cut out car shape from felt. Use different colors for windows. Use buttons for monster truck wheels. Glue magnets to back of buttons.
Options
Get fancy with car styles. How about a swagger wagon, or Hummer? Or, for the more flowery kids, you can make felt flower magnets. Just cut out teardrop shapes from the felt, and glue to back of button, then glue magnet to the button.
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