15 and a half Boredom Busters

1. Painting with Water
When it’s dry outside, take a bucket of water and a few brushes and paint the walls and floors! The walls and floors change colour but then dry out - with no mess to clear up!
Take all your old decorating brushes and rollers and let them experiment with the different effects the brushes and rollers make.

2. Squishing paint (under 2 ½years)
Young children love the feel of the bristles on a brush. Get a suitable thick brush and let them scrunch it. They love the feel of the paint squishing through the brush too. So strip them off, or cover them in an overall and let them simply scrunch and squish the bush and then introduce some paint. They may not concentrate on the activity for long, but it will start the process of exploring mark making.

3. Tray of things
Take a large tray and put in different items. Put the items in separately to start, to increase the child’s attention span, introducing new items will help keep their interest.
Sit with them and join in this simple activity. Supervision required.
Some examples:
• Use hard pasta, when the tray moves little hands will try and grab all the pieces.
• Sprinkle glitter in the tray and watch children sparkle as it covers their hands
• Add water and let them splash!
• Let them jump in it - holding them as it will be slippery!
• Cooked pasta- slippery and soft- compare the different textures with the hard pasta.

For over 3 years - this game works well as a memory game - removing different items.
Suggest making a silly story with the items, perhaps going on a journey. Then see how much better their memory of the items is when you remove one. (This is a powerful way of remembering lots of things)

4. Wiggly Worms
Put food colouring in a saucepan and cook some spaghetti add some oil. Take it out and cool it. Put it in a tray, and let the children play! Put paper on top of the spaghetti and print worm trails - hold them up to the light and see the patterns shine through.

5. Make simple salt dough
The easiest recipe in the world. There are more complex ones but this works just as well.
• Equal amounts of Plain flour and salt. i.e.: 1 cup of salt 1 cup of flour
• A little water
• A bit of oil (scented oil is nicer)
• Mix the dry ingredients and compare the feel. Add water a little at a time. (Add more flour if too squelchy)
• Let the children get their hands in it all washes off!
• Add some washable paint- just a few drops to change the colour. Mix in.
• Form into a ball. Make and play!

6. Play with Clay
Buy some play dough or air drying clay and experiment with the different effects you can create leave patterns by imprinting objects, roll, squish, make models or magnets or even badges! If you can’t get hold of clay try modeling with silver foil or making silver balls to through into a big bucket.

7. Print with Vegetables
A different approach to painting which captures children’s imagination.
(Many will of course eat the vegetables. If the children are old enough to understand you can play a game with eat one then paint one)
Get out large sheets of paper, a few trays of paint and cut up vegetables.
Carrots and parsnips cut in half are good and easy to hold, they create great circles and can be rolled.
Mushrooms slide really well in paint. Experiment!
Potatoes are a classic to print with.
If you have any simple shape cutters, cut the potato in half, push the cutter in, and trim around the edge to cut away the potato around the cutter.
When you remove the cutter you will be left with the shape ready to print with.

8. Cutting Straws and creating lasers/ necklaces with pipe-cleaners, string or wire
This is fantastic activity to help children learn to cut. The idea is they can cut the straws with one action; it makes a noise and shoots off. If this is done over a tray it is easier to collect all the cut pieces. When the cutting is completed (it can take quite a long time as most children love this activity!) take a piece of string (or if the child is very young they will find a pipe cleaner much easier) and thread the straws.
Use this activity and mix it with beads to create a varied type of necklace, laser belt etc.

9. Tray of water
You will need:
• Tray
• Splash mat - like a tarpaulin or even an old towel
• Leaves, boat, duck, cork, stone etc - a selection of objects from the house
Children love playing with water. Have the water at a slightly warm temperature so their little hands don’t get too cold. It is easier to do this outside if your child really likes splashing!
Let them play with it - see what floats. Add glitter to extend their concentration. Try different splashes, try standing and splashing – but hold hands as it is slippery.

10. Handfuls of bubbles to Catch & Blow
You will need:
• Washing up liquid
• Plastic box (Tupperware box, old ice cream or for older children a big storage box if you have one)
• Splash mat
• Towel
Squirt a good amount of washing up liquid into a bowl (1 good squirt should do it) Add some water about half a cup, a wiggle your hand around a lot to create bubbles. Make lots of bubbles.
They are good to play with now. But if you leave them for 5 minutes they dry out a bit and are much better to lift up in handfuls and blow

11. Cardboard Boxes
It’s an old saying. But so true, children are often more interested in the packaging than the gift sometimes! You cannot beat cardboard boxes to ignite imagination.
You will need:
• Space
• Cardboard boxes (the bigger the better)
• Options: paint, brushes, paint tray, splash mat, overalls
Children love the flexibility of boxes, and its wonderful what they think of to do with them…with some support to start with they can create tunnels, houses, castles, space ships, dens, secret places….and of course it doesn’t actually have to look like any of the afore mentioned, a child is quite happy to imagine it is a magical castle or a space centre.
Painting the boxes is a great idea. It takes time and concentration and helps to develop new ideas along the way.

12. Matching shapes.
Sorting and matching shapes is an important skill that helps with numeracy.
You will need;
• Any type of paper
• Any old fabric
• Scissors
• Optional - big sheet of paper, pen
Cut out different shapes from the paper and fabric, circle, square, triangle, star, rectangle etc.,
Draw around these shapes on the big sheet of paper with your child. It might take a few attempts (You may have to do your own one for the matching game)
Use this to discuss shapes, they might like to colour in the shapes. Find shapes. If you can shout out the shape and ask your child to jump on the shape. Alternatively they could see if they can match the shape on the big picture.

13. Nature Trail
You will need:
• Some leaves and natural objects or a garden (Cabbage leaves are good to include)
• Paper or cards
• Brushes/sponge
Pick some different shaped leaves and paint the leaf, and print onto paper. Try painting both sides of the leaf and pressing it down. Do remember it doesn’t have to look like a leaf when it is printed. If you really want it to look like one- do your own! Children love the action and are not worried about making it look perfect! (It’s good for the confidence to just have a go and enjoy it)
Print them onto card, write on the card with a gold pen and save yourself a fortune on cards!

14. Silly Puppets
Whether it is an old sock, a wooden spoon or a paper bag children love it when the puppets hide and jump out!
Telling stories with a book or making them up is good fun with puppets. Let your child decide what sort of puppet or toy they want to use to tell a story. At night a torch works well to make exciting shadow puppets.

15. Cutting, ripping and sticking.
You can’t beat a bit of cutting, or ripping, then sticking it down.
Use wrapping paper or old magazines. Younger children love to tear and scrunch. Older children may like to stick everything down - remember to let them enjoy the sticking (and peeling it all back off!). You can always cut it out into a recognizable shape at the end!

15 ½.  Start with half an idea
You may often start with just half an idea of what you're going to do when you begin something - but once you get started, different ideas start coming. So don’t wait for the full idea just give it a go and see what happens!

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These are just some ideas to get you started. You will find your child does ‘their own’ exploring and will do an activity in a totally different way to what you had planned - so go with their ideas, add in your own ideas and just enjoy having fun together.
Do let me know how you get on. Please email me yours or your children’s ideas and we will include them on our site www.thecreationstation.co.uk with a credit to them.
Happy exploring!
Sarah Cressall
Founder of the Creation Station Ltd

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Emma Swales is founder of Marketingesp Limited, a Leicestershire based marketing services and pr agency.

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