What do to with kids that is free?

Any state parks in your area? We use these to go hiking, playing in streams, playgrounds, and at the end we pay a few bucks to use the pool.

I have a 7 year old and 2 year old and my 7 year old has made up a summer calendar for each day (except weekends). For instance, one day so far has been Dinosaur Day. He got to watch a Dinosaur movie (Land Before Time), played with his dinosaur toys, and wanted to eat like a dinosaur so he requested for dinner to have Pork Chops (for the meat eaters) and Broccoli (for the leaf eaters). Another day is Toy Story Day, which follows the same general idea. It's free and doesn't involve us going anywhere. Just an idea for you.

We generally go to the local library for storytime, go to our subdivision pool, play with the sprinkler in the backyard and once a week go to a different town (about a 15-20 mile drive) to do something there (water fountains to play in, Chick Fil A story/craft time, lunch with Daddy at work, etc.).

Oh yeah, certain movie theatres have $1 movies for kids during the summer. You could always check into that too. Not free, but cheap.

Hope some of this helps.

Depends if you live in a bigger city. I take my son to the mall they have a large play area for the kids (bring hand sanitizer), my son loves the gym daycare ($10 a month and I get to workout), some of the rec. parks have indoor gyms/basketball courts and have activities (havent' been to one in years- my older children are in their mid 20's and I am starting over), some book stores have story time, michael's craft store has craft days (some free/some you have to buy stuff), Lowes' and HomeDepot have craft Saturdays too (check what saturdays though). Hope this helps!

Not exactly free, but I was at Big Lots yesterday and picked up a few kites for $1 each. Something to change up the usual park routine a bit.

Most museums have a free day or free evening once or twice a month you could check out too.

look up "free kids crafts"

plan a scavenger hunt (i.e. find: 5 different leaves, 10 different colored rocks, a branch that is longer than your arm, etc), or in the house (find 5 blue things, something that starts with every letter of the alphabet)

kids yoga on the lawn

a (healthy) picnic.. taking a walk to find the perfect place.

set up an obstacle course (egg walk, hop scotch, sprint)

Have fun!

More ideas: Do weekly fitness goals for your kids, how high/far they can jump, how fast they can run to a tree and back, how many jumping jacks they can do, if they can touch their toes, and how long (if) they can balance on 1 leg. Not only is it fun, but you'll be teaching them a good, active lifestyle. And they'll be so proud when they beat their own records!

We also did how long you can hula hoop, throwing a ball and back and forth without it hitting the ground (baseball size or beach ball), how long they can continually jump on a trampoline (if you have on or access to one), floating in the pool or treading water...

All of these can be made harder or easier based on your kids ages.

Make up their own lyrics to a song (maybe give them a theme)
staple pages to make a book and have them write/illustrate their own stories, you can help them.
Act out scenes from a favorite book or movie (and laugh at yourself while doing it!)
Have them memorize a poem to impress their dad or grandparents or neighbors with (love Shel Silverstein for this)
Plan a "lesson" and teach your kids about something new, i.e. sea animals, rocks, yoga... anything (use the internet for research before hand. ) and give them "homework" (coloring a undersea picture for the little ones, writing a poem about seals or sharks for the bigger kids.)

Last one: as a kid we would get to plan one meal a week, help to buy what we needed for it and cook it (I started at age 5 with help from my pop)

Make homemade crafts like play dough or baking (good for teaching skills), camp in the living room when it gets too hot, play carwash either for your car or their toys, have a theme day (We watched How to eat Fried Worms with a spaghetti dinner and dirt cupcakes with gummi worms!), nature walks, plant a garden in paper cups with dried beans, learn how to make butter, make dioramas out of recycled stuff, puppet shows with old socks or lunch bags, tie dye with canned beets...

There's so much you can do if you use your own imagination and think about what you either did, or would have liked to do as a kid.

Museums, art galleries with kids activity rooms.
Check out your local parks website and see what free events they have.
Woods, beach.
By a bottle of glycerine from the chemist and make a bucket full of bubble mixture and use things like coat hangers to make giant bubbles.
I find cutting shapes in potatoes for printing tricky, so DD loves printing with toys, plastic dinosaur and animal feet etc
google a kettle play dough recipe, takes minutes to make.
For any upcoming birthdays ask for annual passes for places. DD and I got zoo membership for ours so it only costs me a few quid on the bus to get there and it's a whole day out or a few hours to fill.
Any free urban farms?
By a roll of lining wall paper really cheaply and use it to draw zoo/farm/road scenes on,
google free print out s and activity sheets.
Visit pet shops, airports, ferry terminals

when I have stale / old bread, I take the kids down to a local pond and they feed little pieces of the bread to the ducks.

Where do you live? If you live near any large cities or resort towns, there is usually a lot of stuff to do for free or near-free. Of course, festivals cost some money (usually for food), but you have to eat something anyway and they usually have activities for kids

Other ideas:
-hiking
-going to the beach/lake
-arts and crafts using stuff at your home (ex. paper machete)
-feeding the ducks/birds (Pretty affordable, and a great way to get rid of bread that is getting old)


Good luck!!