School Break Ideas

So L only goes to Preschool for half the day so we have him home a lot anyways but I am trying to come up with some fun things to do while he's on school break and he's home all day. I figured other parents are probably looking for ideas too. So here are some of my ideas:

• Have a pajama day- Wear Pajamas all day. Make pancakes. Read lots of stories. Make crafts out of cereal- cheerio or fruit loop garland or necklaces, or sort fruit loops by color and crush to make colored sand and use to make pictures. Watch a movie. Use puffy paint to decorate the bottoms of socks to make slipper socks. Make breakfast pizza for dinner.

• Make Peanut Butter Play dough- My mom used to make this edible play dough when I was little I found a recipe on Make and Takes last winter and the boys love it. Just mix 1 cup peanut butter, 1/2 cup honey and 2 cups confectioner's sugar. We use candy, raisins, cereal, coconut and chocolate chips to decorate our creations.
• Have a Yogurt Parfait Buffet for breakfast- set out yogurt, fruit, granola, chocolate chips and sprinkles to have kids make their own yogurt parfait. Was thinking it would be fun  to let the kids finger paint with colored yogurt too.
• Make a snowman if we get snow.

• Make Glow Balloons put glow sticks inside of balloons before blowing them up, blow up the balloons and turn off the lights.
• Have a family game night to try out new board games
• Make gumdrop and toothpick buildings

 

• Make mini pizzas.

• Make wrapping paper collages.
• Ball up wrapping paper and toss at targets( the targets could be letters, numbers sight words), empty box, or laundry basket.
• Ball up wrapping paper to make and indoor wrapping paper snowman
• Make a wrapping paper scrap bin with scissors for cutting practice
• Make monsters from Styrofoam and pipe cleaners
• Make a robot or other creations from empty boxes and toy packaging.
• Write and design thank you notes for gifts
• Have a book party grab a stack of books to read, some blankets, and snacks.
• Have a dance party.
• Clean up toys areas, donate some toys to make room for new ones.
•  Make snow globes
• Camp out in the living room under the Christmas tree before we take it down
• Decorate and label some storage for new toys
• Make cars out of boxes and have an indoor drive in movie
• Set up an indoor obstacle course.
• Print out some mazes and connect the dots from Busy Bee Kids Crafts
• Bring bubbles and bubble wands into the bathroom to blow bubbles
• Make noise makers for New Year's eve
• Try out all our new presents
• Practice counting by counting different types of gifts that we got for Christmas- ex. How many cars? How many balls? How many socks? How many books?
• Use glue and glitter to make New years fireworks on black paper
• Visit some local museums- We hope to go to our nearby science museum and children's museum
• Have an un-decorating party make hot cocoa, snacks, play holiday music and get everyone to pitch in taking down the decorations.
• Set up our own kids art museum display- Have the kids make some art work and decorate frames to display to brighten up a wall in our house. Once I take all the decorations down I always feel the house looks a little drab.
• Make some bird feeders and decorate a tree outside for the birds
• Have block building competitions- who can build the tallest tower? Most colorful? Most unique?
• Make our own ABC book using pictures of things around the house that start with each letter
• Play with cornstarch and water goop 
• Make ice cream sundaes- could use Christmas candy and cookies for toppings
• Get a few house plants and some planters to decorate. I always like to get some greenery in the house after the decorations are put away. Right after Christmas I normally pick up a few Amaryllis bulbs on clearance to plant in a pot indoors.
• Have an indoor picnic
• Make mini Holiday Scrapbooks with the kids- I'm thinking about getting mini photo albums from the dollar store for this and using up wrapping paper scraps, Christmas cards and sticker along with some pictures
• If you are traveling or going to be out and about with kids you might want to make some of our Purse Sized Busy Bags

I kept brainstorming and came up with a lot of ideas when school break is only a week and a few days so we may be doing some of these in the New Year but I figure its good to have several ideas to choose from.