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Boredom Busters for Family Fun at Home

While being at home may have some advantages, such as interacting with your child and spending quality time together, it can also be hard to find fun interactive games to entertain your child. So, creating a weekly list of easy at-home boredom busters can be helpful when planning for the week ahead. 

Children’s brains are wired in a way that causes them to crave interactive stimuli. Simply sitting at home, with hours of screen time is not an option. Parent-child interaction is critical and one of the most effective building blocks for physical, cognitive, and emotional development for your child.

To start improving your child’s development with at-home boredom busters, take some of these activities and incorporate them into your weekly routine.

Arts and Crafts 

Fostering creativity is important for a child. Not only will it improve your child’s artistic capabilities, but it will also help develop mental, social, and emotional skills. 

Creating art is a good boredom buster activity because it can boost your child’s ability to analyze and problem solve in numerous ways. As a child handles a paintbrush, their fine motor skills improve. Basic math skills can be learned through counting items and colors. When children explore and experiment with different materials, they have a hint of how to carry out an easy science experiment. 

All this makes at-home arts and craft projects an effective boredom buster for the family at home. 

Here are two art projects to explore: 

Finger Paint 

Finger painting can be messy and that’s where it’s fun for your child. Provide a big enough table to hold brushes, paint, and other materials that will be used for this project. Make sure it is in an area that is easy to clean. Provide a smock or old clothing that you don’t mind your child getting paint on. 

  1.     Use all the primary colors, so that your child can mix and create other colors during this process. 
  2.     Read a story and have your child paint a scene from the story, using their imagination.
  3.     Add texture. This can be sand, rocks, dirt, rice, pasta, or whatever else you have available.
  4.     Cut a large enough paper and place it on the table. 
  5.     Pain with fingers, rollers, pastry brushes, and comb to create different styles. 
  6.     Splatter paint or use a straw to blow the paint across the paper. 

Paper plate Jellyfish 

  1.     Provide the child with a paper plate and some paint, they will use a brush or their hands to cover the plate in paint. 
  2.     Once they are finished, they will decorate the plate with different color glitter.
  3.     Cut the plate to a “jellyfish” shape then turn the plate over.
  4.     Place PVA glue on the back of the plate
  5.     Cut 8-10 strips of ribbon to various lengths 
  6.     Add ribbons to the plate, making sure they are spaced out nicely. 
  7.     Cut out a pair of white and black circles to create the eyes or just use google eyes.
  8.     Let the jellyfish sit long enough to let everything dry. 

Get in the Kitchen 

Working with your child in the kitchen is a great boredom buster activity for both you and your child. Stirring, mixing, and adding ingredients will surely put a smile on your child’s face. Allowing your child to be a part of the cooking experience is good for them. It encourages them to be independent and explore things they have not done before.

If your child is being monitored and you are taking the proper safety precautions, your child can learn a lot from this experience. Here are two cooking activities that have kid-friendly steps: 

Baked Parmesan Zucchini

Ingredients includes:

  •     3-2 zucchini
  •     Freshly grated Parmesan 
  •     Dried thyme
  •     Dried oregano 
  •     Dried basil
  •     Garlic powder
  •     Black pepper (to taste)
  •     Olive oil 
  •     Fresh parsley leaves 

 Direction:

  1.     Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (177 C).
  2.     Coat a rack with nonstick spray.
  3.     In a bowl place parmesan, thyme, oregano, basil, garlic powder, salt and pepper, to taste. 
  4.     Place zucchini onto the prepared baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle the mixture that is in the bowl. 
  5.     Place in the oven for ~15 minutes or until crisp and golden brown. 

Strawberry Sheet Cake 

Ingredients includes:

  •     Fresh Strawberries 
  •     White cake mixture 
  •     Eggs
  •     Vegetable oil 
  •     Package strawberry flavored instant gelatin

Direction:

  1.     Wash and hull 16 ounces of fresh strawberries and gently place them in a blender (Chopped up but not liquid). 
  2.     1 cup of puree for the cake and 2 tablespoons for the icing. 
  3.     Preheat the oven to 350 degrees then lightly spray a baking pan.
  4.     In a large bowl mix together the cake mix, 3 eggs and ¾ vegetable oil until combined. 
  5.     Measure 1-2 teaspoon of gelatin and place it in a small bowl (set aside for icing).
  6.     Pour the remainder of gelatin and 1 cup of the strawberry puree into the batter and mix well. 
  7.     Pour the mix into the preheated pan and spread evenly. Bake for 30-35 minutes, then place icing on sheet cake.

Ingredients for icing mix 

  •     Stick of butter
  •     Cream Cheese 
  •     Vanilla extract 
  •     Powdered sugar 
  •     Strawberry flavored instant gelatin 
  •     Strawberry puree 

Direction for icing mix: 

  1.     In a large bowl place cream cheese and butter and mix until well combined and lumps dissolute. 
  2.     Add vanilla and mix well.
  3.     Slowly add 3 cups of powdered sugar mix well after each addition of powdered sugar. 
  4.     Add 2 tablespoons of the strawberry puree and reserved 1 teaspoon of strawberry flavored gelatin and mix well.
  5.     Spread over the cooled cake. 

Indoor and Outdoor Fun

Activities and experiments taking place indoors or outdoors can also be interactive and fun for parents and children. A change of environment can allow your child to be better immersed in the activity presented to them. Indoor activities can include making friendship bracelets, having a dance party, reading aloud, making sensory bins, creating simple science projects, hide-and-seek, or even making forts and pop-up tents. At-home indoor boredom busters for entertainment can be whatever the imagination presents. While many things indoors can be done outdoors, do outdoor activities that can’t not be brought inside. On a hot summer day, water balloon baseball can be a fun activity to get your kids wet. Chalk obstacle courses can improve your child’s gross motor movement. This can be seen when the instructions states jump like a bunny twice, stand on one leg, jump on one leg etc. Sensory scavenger hunt, which requires collecting items that includes leaves, sticks, wood chips, pebbles, flowers. Tape each item to a piece of paper, then have your child go out and find the same items.  

Boredom busters for family fun at home can be interactive and fun for all. Parents-child interaction is very important and a key component to natural development, they also create fun bonding time and wonderful memories. Parents can build a strong foundation for your child by actively participating in attentive and interactive games. When children feel good this helps to improve their self-confidence, thinking, and interaction over time.

These fun at-home boredom buster activities are here for you to put in practice and explore how effective they can be. The Pillars Christian Learning Center provides a positive environment in which children are able to express themselves and their abilities to develop effectively. To learn more about The Pillars Christian Learning and what we have to offer, please call or visit our website at https://thepillarsclc.com.