Boredom Box for Kids (she:Stephanie)

Hi, I guess I should start by introducing myself and my cute little family…

This is me and my hubby

Miss Addison
Dallin and Easton

My name is Stephanie. I have three crazy and wild kids… Dallin is 5, Easton is 3 and Addison is 3 months old. I have what I call “craft ADHD”, I am CONSTANLY trying to find new things to make and do. I own a small photography company and have been doing that for 5 years now, but my most favorite thing about my life is being able to stay home with my kids and just enjoying them while they are still little.

Summer is so fun for me, because it’s warm outside and my boys and I (at the moment Addy is just along for the ride) can just explore and play to our hearts content. But this summer has gone by WAY to fast and I feel like I’ve missed almost all of it. I get so caught up in cleaning the house, making dinner, editing pictures, feeding the baby and just messing around on the computer that I feel like I am missing those moments with my kids that will mean so much when they are older and don’t want anything to do with me.

So because I need to SLOW DOWN and enjoy my children and because my boys are constantly following me around the house complaining that they are SO bored… I came up with the “Summer Boredom Box”

I just used an old box I had around the house and found some scrapbook paper. Cut it to size and mod podged the paper on and there you go! Honestly, it doesn’t matter what the outside look like, it’s more about what’s inside. You could use a glass jar, a big mug or whatever your creative minds come up with.

Now here comes the fun part, coming up with activities to do. I searched the internet, pulled all the activities I could find for the kids to do and put them in a word document. I erased the ones that didn’t work for us and added a few of my own, printed it out and cut it up into small pieces…

and then stuck them in the box.

I made big deal of it and told the boys that anytime they were bored they could ask for the boredom box and pick an activity. I love it because it’s exciting for them, it’s something new which we all know is a good thing and it forces me to sit down and spend some quality time with them. There are a few activities that they have picked that have had to be put on the fridge and done later (like trip to a free museum in town), but in those instances they still get to pick another. The rules are that we have to do what we pick, no putting it back and picking until we get the best one, so it’s an adventure every time.

Here’s a list of a few of our Boredom Box activities:

the boys doing one of the activities

Search the internet and look around, you will find lots of blogs and places with fun ideas for your kids and make it work for you. At Christmas time we do the same thing, except with an advent calendar and each day the kids get to pick on Christmas activity to do as we count down to Christmas.. the possibilities are endless. Have fun and be creative!
~ Stephanie ~