By New York Times bestselling author & mother of two, Jean Oram

“A LIFESAVER FOR PARENTS AND EDUCATORS.” Kenneth, Amazon reviewer

Never be bored again! All of this website’s great content and MORE!

Affordably available in ebook for only $2.99 and $11.99 in paperback from these online retailers:
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Amazon CA
Amazon AU
iBooks
Barnes and Noble
Kobo
Google

Ever been unable to think of a single fun thing to help your child solve their boredom blues?

Beat the boredom blues and turn those frowns upside down with over 1,000 easy, fun, cost-effective play ideas for toddlers to school-aged kids. There’s something for everyone–even parents–in this tried and tested one-stop book from NY Times bestselling author, Jean Oram.

“A lifesaver for parents and educators.” –Kenneth, reader.

Get the kids busy and out of your hair all while helping them develop the skills they need to succeed in our busy, complicated world.

Want to be the new favorite in the family? Check out some of the fun inside 1,001 Boredom Busting Play Ideas:

+ 101 tricky, goofy challenges for kids
+ 36 Travel games PLUS 24 more word games that can be played in the car
+ Arts and crafts (and holiday crafts, too)
+ Classic games from your childhood such as Hot Potato & Red Rover
+ Outside play ideas
+ Playground games
+ Mad scientist safe & easy experiments–including Flubber!
+ Birthday party games
+ Easy arts & crafts for all ages
+ Improv games–Human Gumby!
+ Family day trip ideas
+ Group games
+ Rainy day activities–rain painting!
+ And more play, play, play!

Now includes 26 BONUS activities for a grand total of 1,027 activities to keep your kids happy, and playing.

The brain learns by playing and play is children’s work. Build smart, happy, healthy children… let’s play!

A Tricky Challenge to Get You Started:

Coin Catching à la Elbow!
Put your right hand on your right shoulder. Point your elbow out in front of you. Lay a penny on the flat part of your arm just above your elbow. Without moving your arm, turn your hand so the palm of your hand is facing up. Very quickly move your elbow down and try to catch the penny with your right hand as it falls.

The record for caught pennies when I was a kid was a stack of 14. How many can you catch?

Want more fun? Try licking your elbow. Balance a spoon on your nose. Make an edible ice-cream cone Christmas tree. There’s so much more inside! Grab 1,001 Boredom Busting Play Ideas for a LOW playtime price–it won’t last forever!–and have your best sleepover, birthday party, road tip, babysitting experience, snowy day, or play time ever!

Save Time. Save Money. Play More.

Never be bored again! All of this website’s great content and MORE!

Affordably available in ebook & paperback from these online retailers:
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Amazon CA
Amazon AU
iBooks
Barnes and Noble
Kobo
Google

How to Make a Bookmark

My daughter came up with this easy craft. Here’s how:

Take a few thin ribbons, beads, sequins, and hairpins (bobby pins).

Thread the ribbon half way through the eye of the bobby pin.

Slide beads or sequins either onto the ribbon on the bobby pin or both.

Tie a knot to hold the ribbon in place on the bobby pin.

Slide the pin onto your page to hold your spot in your book.

Voila! Done!

This craft makes a great birthday party activity as well as a great homemade gift idea.

Have you made a homemade bookmark? What is your favourite method?

Click to tweet this homemade craft: How to make a hairpin bookmark. An easy craft for all kiddos.

Have you signed up for the newsletter? Lots more crafts and play ideas–and it’s free! Click to subscribe.

Fine Motor Skill Development Activities For Kids

Have you noticed if we say that a silly, fun, playful activity like stickering up a page with stickers is good for our child’s development we are more likely to promote it and give it importance?

Well, most silly, kid’s play is actually good for their development. But this sticker activity show in the photo above is particularly good for developing fine motor skills. And yeah, it’s a bit nuts how my toddler piled the stickers over top of each other, but he’s learning something there too. He’s learning spatial awareness, layering, how things still exist even when they ‘disappear.’ So many things!

And it also works as a quiet activity we can do together–I peel the stickers off the sticker paper and he places them on the page. It’s fun, it is a way to connect–and I can ensure the stickers don’t end up on the walls or in the dog! But it also has created a sense of pride in my son. He loves this craft. It is proudly displayed in his room and he enjoys adding to it day after day.

So grab some stickers and sticker it up! (It’s not like when I was a kid and stickers were hard to come by!)

What activity do you enjoy with your kids that promotes unexpected development perks?

Tweet this–> Have you stickered it up today? Playing with stickers promotes fine motor skills in kids.

An easy Thanksgiving Craft for Kids–they’ll love it!

Happy Thanksgiving (weekend) my Canadian friends! And for my American friends, tuck this Thanksgiving centerpiece craft for kids in your back pocket for next month.

Kids love to be involved in big family celebrations and, in particular, feel pride when they can create something that is shared and enjoyed by everyone. An easy centerpiece craft is great way for kids to do just that!

This turkey-lurky is a craft Mary made with the kids at the local library and all the turkeys looked completely different even though the kids used the same supplies. I love how kids always add their own flair to their crafts. It’s unique and creative and also a form of self-expression. Who knew, eh?

How to Make a Turkey/Thanksgiving Centerpiece Craft

You’ll need the following supplies:

• terracotta pot* (small)
• feathers
• craft foam sheets (brown, orange, red) — if you don’t have foam sheets, you can easily use construction paper
• white glue (or a hot glue gun along with adult assistance)
• googly eyes
• fuzzy pompom balls
• scissors
• pen (you may want to sketch out the pieces before cutting and pen works a bit better than pencil on foam sheets–although pencil can work as well)

Using a brown sheet of crafting foam cut it into a long keyhole shape (see photo above). Cut a beak out of orange foam, and a mouth out of red foam. Then cut out that funny wattle shape turkeys have. (Also red–although if your kids are partial to purple or green, go with the flow.)

Glue the face parts, including googly eyes, on to the keyhole-shaped piece. (The fat part is the face, and the longer part is the neck which will be partly hidden from view when it is glued into the pot.

Glue the head onto the pot at the base of the neck. (Tuck it inside the pot.) Glue feathers–standing up–on the other side of the pot’s inside.

Along the last of the exposed rim, add the fuzzy pompoms. Why? ‘Cause they look cool.

Voila! A Thanksgiving Centerpiece. (Or, if you are teaching a unit on farm animals or birds, you now have an easy turkey craft for your classroom of little turkeys.

What are your plans for Thanksgiving? Do you usually have a centerpiece? Have your kids ever made one for you?

*No terracotta pot? Try using a small yogurt container and either painting it brown with thick paint or even better–no flaking worries(and easier)–try covering it with construction paper.

How about a painted rock craft for your kids?

How to Make a Painted Rock Craft

First, find a rock that is nice and smooth. It can be an oval or round rock, a rock with a flatter top, or even a rock shaped like an animal–it depends what your kids want their rock to be in the end. An oval rock could become a ladybug (easy and looks great!), a flatter rock could become a canvas for a painting like on the rock shown below, and a rock shaped like an animal can become that animal (trickier to do)!

Make sure you wash and dry your rocks before you paint for the best results.

Second, you will need to lay out plastic or newspaper over your work area and maybe toss a painting smock or old shirt over the kids. If you want to leave your painted rocks outdoors, you will need paint that doesn’t not clean up with water. In other words, the kind of paint we usually don’t let our kids paint with!

Third, hand the kids some paintbrushes and let them go to town with their creations! If they are using a permanent oil based paint they may need some tips on how to layer their colours and let the layers dry between coats. Otherwise, let them explore and figure it out–they can come up with some really creative things as well as some really creative solutions to muddied paint problems! And if all else fails, you can go find more rocks (always a good excuse to go for a hike!) or repaint the rocks you have.

Here’s a rock my daughter painted as part of her school’s grade three market (And yes, I had to buy it back from the school for $2, but the money went to a good cause–a charity–and it was a ton of fun for the kids to learn how to sell their wares and for me to go shopping!):

Enjoy!

How about you? Have you and your kids painted rocks? Any tips? Ideas? Suggestions? Comments? I always love to hear from you.