If you could help me with a list of things I can include on the site, I'd appreciate it. I'm looking for fun, frugal activities for kids to make or do. Examples include:

Homemade bubbles
Homemade play dough
How to do an indoor scavenger hunt
Etc.

Please help me brainstorm, and you may see your idea end up as an article on the site!

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The homemade play dough, is that the same as playing clay? I just made some and it was a hit not just with my kids, but I had the whole neighborhood at my house over the weekend, playing with it, and making stuff for mother's day for next year. I had added food coloring as well. Then we put it in the oven, and once it was done, we let it cool, and painted the masterpieces. It was pretty cool. CHEAP TOO!!!

My kids love chalk on the sidewalk/driveway. While they were doodling on the sidewalk, I drew up hopscotch, and it brought back memories to my childhood, and my boys learned the game too.

I started jump roping while outside.

We bike/walk to the playgroud.

I usually bring home the printer paper from work--the header pages that end up in the trash, and my kids love creating their so called masterpieces on them. We love paint in this house, and we always paint outside on the deck where we can easily wash it up, and hose the kids down as well.

My kids collected some flowers over the weekend and we are drying and pressing them in books. I will laminate them into bookmarks when they are dry! The kids love to do this and we often use them as gifts too for grandparents and teachers (we include a book).

Painting rocks into fun animals and adding googly eyes is cheap and tons of fun.

My DS LOVES going to the library. (It's just a mile from home so we get a nice walk in as well.) They have a wide variety of puzzels that he can play with as well as some puppets and they will host a "reading" and they also have craft days that we can participate in. We also walk to the park near by.
DS also loves to help me clean so we do that a lot together. He helps dust, with his own little towel, helps with the cups when we do dishes & has his own little swiffer & vaccum when we do the floors.
He really gets a kick out of helping water the flowers in the evening.

Chaulk & bubbles are favs as well.

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Some ideas:

Gather blank paper, stickers, markers, rubber stamps, etc. and let the kids make their own stationery for writing thank-you notes.

Let the kids make a tent out of a card table with an old blanket or sheet hung over it. You could even let them eat a picnic lunch inside.

Make a beanbag toss game. Fill old socks partway with dried beans and tie closed with twist ties or string. Cut a hole in a large cardboard box. For older kids, make 3 different size holes and assign points to the holes--i.e. more points for tossing your beanbag into the smallest hole.

Feed the birds. Cover a pinecone with peanut butter; then roll in birdseed. Hang in a tree outside your window so the kids can watch the birds as they eat.

Outer Space: give your kids some big boxes and have them build and decorate a rocket. Eat dried foods and drink Tang.

Spend an afternoon writing letters or making homemade cards to send to out-of-state relatives. Let the kids make drawings, finger paint portraits, or collages to send to Grandma and Grandpa to adorn their refrigerator.

Pull out the teapot and teacups and hold an afternoon tea party. Along with your tea, serve finger sandwiches and cookies. If your children are too young for tea, serve heated lemonade or hot chocolate.


Here is a good basic recipes for homemade face paint:
You'll need:
1 tsp. cornstarch
1/2 tsp. water
1/2 tsp. cold cream
food coloring (paste coloring will give deeper colors, click to order)
Mix cornstarch and cold cream together until smooth. Mix in water and food coloring. Store in an airtight container. Repeat this for each color. Visit your local dollar store or look for store brand cold cream. There is no need to use expensive brands. One jar will make a lot of paint. Mix it up and store in baby food jars or film canisters and keep them closed when you aren't using them.

Make Rainbow Colored Macaroni Beads

How to Color Macaroni

1. Mix 2 Tbsp. rubbing alcohol and 3 drops of food coloring (more if you want deeper color) in a small container and set it aside.


2. Pour 1 cup of uncooked macaroni (Elbow and Ziti work best) in a large Ziploc Bag.


3. Add the colored alcohol to the bag.


4. Zip the bag closed and squeeze the macaroni around in the alcohol for about 2 minutes until it’s evenly colored.


5. Cover a cookie sheet with two layers of paper towels and spread the colored macaroni out to let it dry. It should take about 5-10 minutes to dry thoroughly.

Now your beads are ready to be used. String them on some yarn to make “Macaroni Beaded Jewelry”.

You can also cover a shoebox with colored paper and then glue on some stickers, cut-outs, and your newly colored beads to embellish a “treasure box”. Simply use shell or bowtie macaroni for gluing on flat surfaces. Oh, and don't forget a dash of glitter.

Use this technique to make lots of beads in every color of the rainbow.

Store any leftover Rainbow Macaroni in a ziploc baggie and add them to your Craft Kit.

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Kim, I did a "country" theme with my kids when they were young and they still talk about it. I don't have time to post all the details now, but will sometime today. When do you need this by???

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I'm fascinated as to what this is. Be sure to let us know! The above this will keep me going for quite some time (thanks, everyone!) but I could still use more ideas.

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My kids like to collect stuff in the yard. Sometimes it's worms, acorns, dandelions, depends on the age. My 12 year old, her friend, and my six year old dd picked up about 150 caterpillars on Sat. They made a racecourse on the driveway and raced them. Kept them amused for a couple of hours.

Also, I pick up bargain paint at lowe's/home depot when I see it. They usually have gallons of returned colors for $5. We use it for craft projects or to redo a room. I bought a pretty blue that was really too intense for any of our walls. I bought a gallon of white and we've mixed our own color for two different rooms and are going to do a bathroom with it also. You can find cheap spray paint this way too. I've let older kids use it to paint old furniture or garage sale furniture.

We also grow plants from seeds from food. Avocado seeds and extra dried beens are poplular.

Here's a link for what we called a 'coal' garden, my kids love this, I looked it up a few years ago, I remember doing this as a kid with my mom.
[url="http://www.mrsstewart.com/pages/scginstructions.htm"]

We also like to do homemade volcanoes by pouring vinegar into baking soda. I buy the mega size baking soda and vinegar at Sams to keep on hand for cleaning. This is only frugal as long as the older kids and their friends don't get too excited about it. They like to fill plastic bottles, cap, and shake. It's still cheaper than soda!

And there's always camping in the backyard.

Forgot a really popular one here.. Decorating cookies. Lots of sprinkles and sugars. Make a bunch of different colors of homemade icing and sugar cookies or cupcakes.

So far this spring, we've made:
-a basket out of a 1 liter plastic bottle and pipe cleaners--cut about 2/3rds to 3/4 of the bottle off. Poke holes in the plastic on opposite sides and thread the pipe cleaners in. We twisted together a couple of different colors. Decorate w/stickers etc.
-a "snow globe" bottle w/ equal parts water & cornsyrup, and then added glitter
-a noodle & cereal necklace
- and Bob the Builder Magnets--stickers put on index cards with old magnets taped to the back.
-a butterfly made out of tissue paper and pipe cleaners.
-a paperplate crown
-necklaces/twirlers made out of old shower curtain rings and ribbon


My son has also had fun painting w/ water on the driveway.

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