When it's raining, snowing, or just plain too cold to play outside, your household can fall victim to the "I'm Bored Blues". With a little creativity and imagination, you can find fun things to do without running to the shops. Write each idea on a slip of paper and put them in a hat then the next time the kids are bored, let them draw a slip of paper from a hat to decide which activity to do first!

1. Collages - Using old magazine and Christmas/birthday cards let the kids cut out pictures and paste them onto a piece of cardboard. You can let them cut out whatever they want, or assign each child a letter of the alphabet or a theme to go by for a more challenging project.
2. Picnic Indoors - Pack a basket with paper plates, utensils and cups. Make sandwiches, pack fresh fruit, crisps, a thermos of juice, and yogurt for dessert. Spread a blanket on the living room floor and serve a picnic lunch indoors! Add to the fun by dressing in summer clothes or beach attire. Be sure to wear your sunglasses!
3. Colouring Pasta - Place a handful of dry, uncooked pasta, such as penne, into a plastic zipper bag. Add a tablespoon of white vinegar and 2-3 drops of food coloring. Close the bag and have the kids shake the bag until the pasta is completely coloured. Spread out onto a paper plate or paper towel and allow to dry. Use several bags to create different colours. Once the pasta is dry, kids can use wool to string together pieces to make necklaces and bracelets, or glue them to paper plates or construction paper to create a work of art.
4. Paper Plate Masks - using white paper plates cut out eye holes then let the kids paint designs and glue wool for whiskers, card for ears, glitter, etc to create masks of rabbits, lions, tigers, butterflies, even cars
5. Family Memory Game - Play a family memory game with your kids by asking questions like "What is Grandad's first name?" and "Who is married to Aunty Pam?" Look through old photo albums and see if kids can guess who is who in each picture.
6. Never Ending Adjectives - Ask your child to point out an object, then take turns coming up with adjectives for that object. For example, you may say "a ball", your child would say "a big ball". The game might continue with "a big round ball", "a big round bouncing ball", "a big round bouncing white ball" this continues until the next person cannot remember all the adjectives and the game starts again.
7. Paper Balls - Kids do not normally need an excuse to throw things at each other so this is an easy one.  Get the kids to tear out pages from a magazine, scrunch them into balls then when they have enough ammunition throw them at each other.  When they have finished they can use the “balls” for target practice into the bin.
8. Maths - in my experience children love showing off their mental abilities.  If you have the time sit with them and teach them basic maths, i.e fractions or long addition, subtraction or multiplication.  Make it easy for them by explaining it in terms they understand like dividing up a pie or sharing sweets.  They will delight in showing off the new skills they have learnt to the next adult that walks in the room.
9. Drawing Box - Find a shoe box sized container with a lid and keep it stocked with crayons, felt-tips, coloured pencils, plain paper pads, stickers, stencils, a pencil sharpener and rubber. Explain to the children that this is a "special" drawing box and that everything that comes out, must go back in for the next time they want to get creative.
10. Card Games - Teach the kids how to play the games you used to play when you were young like Taxi, Donkey, Nap, Patience, Snap, Cheat, Hearts, Whist, Cribbage, etc.  If you can’t remember the rules you can always look them up on Google just make sure the kids aren’t around in case you get some adults sites for instance when you are looking up Strip Jack Naked!