by Jo Woodnutt

Created on: May 05, 2008

This was solved by some ancestors of mine, and passed down through the generations. My mum passed it to me, and I will pass it onto my children. This can be done by adults, but is far more fun to be done by children, or for children. Adults always seems to be busy anyway.

Buy a ruled notepad. Now, one side of this pad is for things to do indoors, and one is for things to do outdoors.

Whenever you find yourself not bored, then add whatever you are doing to your list in the appropriate place. By the time you are next bored, you will have a book full of fun things to do.
Here is the first page from my book I started when I was 7.

Outdoors:
-Play on the swings, and see if you can go from one bar (A-frame) to the other without tounching the floor.
-Make a route and run it. Get someone to time you, then see if you can do better.
-Get a cup of water and a brush and paint on the patio. (No paint involved!)
-Draw something in the garden. Now do it with your eyes closed.
-Play Hide-and-seek, 50/50, Tag, or Blind Man's Bluff.

Indoors:
-Bake biscuits or a cake
-Give yourself a pretend budget and choose what you would buy from a catalogue
-Rearrange your room (for even more fun, rearrange it according to Feng Shui)
-Do some painting
-Collect toilet rolls, cardboard boxes, and wallpaper sample books, and keep them in a box. When you are very bored, make something cool with them, and paint it, like a princess castle, shoebox or a Beyblade stadium

For the Parents:
Try to encourage children to be creative, rather than letting them watch television when they are bored.
Or get them to read. The younger they start, the easier they will find it to carry on, and exams later in life will be easier if your child has a good vocabulary and reading level.
Keep boxes of materials (like paints, paper, stencils, scissors, tape, marbling ink, wax crayons, toilet rolls, carboard etc) ready for use when the children are bored.
Try to find a book or two on crafts to interest them. Art Attack magazine is fun.
Encourage the children to play with other children, outside or in, to develop social skills.

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