What to do with bored children these school holidays!!!

What to do with bored children these school holidays!!!
Bored Children! Mum I’m bored! Mum I’ve got nothing to do! Has this started at your place yet?
On the last day of school this was the topic of conversation among my school mum friends……..what to do with kids who are bored. My two seem to get bored very quickly and easily and seem not to be able to think of the many things that they could do to occupy themselves. I remember reading once that having bored children is a good thing, that you should let it play out, that it will teach them how to make the best of any situation with what they have at hand! I have tried to take this little piece of advice BUT one of my children has a dreadful time trying to make the simplest of decisions!
So…..this is how I cope with it. At the beginning of the holiday period I set up what we call our ‘choice board’. It’s just a piece of laminated card that we stick prompt pictures onto with velcro. The pictures that are placed on the board serve as ideas of things to do such as:
- dancing
- listening to music
- colouring in
- doing puzzles
- riding a bike
- playing with lego
- puzzles
- bubbles
- have a picnic
- cooking
- ipad
- wii
When one of my kids complains of being bored I refer them to the choice board. They are usually able to make a quick decisions from what’s available. I am careful with what I put up on the board and do rotate some of the photo’s. For instance the ipad and wii are not always on the board. I do see however that some clever little person has put a cake picture on the board below, he he.
If you’d like to make a pretty choice board like I have above, read my blog where I explain how to download the FREE software to make up the laminated picture cue cards. Let me know if this idea works as well for you as it has for me.
For other ideas and things to do during the school click HERE