It’s that time of the year where school is out, kids are home and they have nothing to do (well they do, but they choose not to), so how much of summer camp, extra curricular activities, classes can a kid take the whole summer! And plus it gets costly for the parents after awhile! So what do you do when your child tells you they are BORED!!! My sister in law gave me this great idea the other day. She said she tried this with her kids and it worked. She got a jar and labeled it “I’M BORED JAR” and in the jar she and her kids came up with activities to write on pieces of paper such as: play-doh, play outside, paint, cook, etc. So every time her kids said “I’M BORED MOM”, she would tell them to pick out an activity from the jar.
Materials:
Construction paper
Printer paper
Tape
1 Jar
Instructions:
Cut a square piece of construction paper out and write “I’m Bored Jar” and have your child decorate it with whatever color, stickers they like. Then stick the label on the jar. Cut up strips of the printer paper and on it write your activities. You and your child come up with the activities (age appropriate) together and make sure it’s things you have in your home. This is so simple and easy that now your child will not get BORED!
Some Activity Ideas To Write: 
- Play-Doh
- Bubbles
- Paint
- Play outdoors
- Ride your Bike
- Watch a movie
- Help Mommy with chores
- Help mommy with dinner
- Play with Lego’s
- Turn on music and have a dance party
- Make rock pets (collect rocks and paint them with faces)
- Read a book
- Play Card games
- Lay on the grass outside and watch the clouds and see how your child’s imagination runs
- Play with outside Chalk
- Plant a Garden
- Listen to books on CD (check a cd/book out from the Library)
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the “im bored jar” is a really great idea i will be making one for my kids aswell?!
Cynthia: That’s great! Please let me know if you have any other suggestions to put for the activites! Hope you and your kids enjoy this awesome project
Wow what a great idea of “I’m bored!” lol! I never though of that! I will do that with my 6 year old.
Maybe you should come up with an idea if “I’m bored” at the mall! lol!!! It’s frustrating when I just want to get out of routine, and try to distract my self on the mall (which is NOT very often, maybe once a month!) and we’l have only 30 min there, and my daughter will start complaining that she is bored, or tired etc!
The only idea that I can come up with, is to tell her, that if she is a good girl , I will take her to the play area. BUT then she’ll be asking me every 5 min “Are you done yet? I want to go play” gosh!
Thanks for sharing such a great idea!!
Hello Melody,
Yes, I agree on going to the mall, my kids always get bored when I take them to the mall, but I always inform them first that mommy first needs to finish her shopping and then we can go to the play area, pet store, etc. It usually helps because I have prepared them in advance on my ride to the mall, while getting out of the car, so on and so forth. Then I tell them that if they keep asking then we are not going to go. It’s a challenge but I swear they grow up so fast that when you look back its just another memory of your child and realizing how quickly they have grown up!
Thanks,
Reena