101 Things to Do with Your Head, Arms, Hands, Legs, and Feet

101 Things to Do With Your Head, Arms, Hands, Legs, and Feet

It’s that time of the year again. By the end of June the nation’s children will be released from their academic chores and parents will be dumped into the roles that formerly the classroom teachers fulfilled. The teachers will be able to rest up for the upcoming season of pencils, chalk, paper, and blackboards, band practices, language classes, instrument lessons, and the like. Soon that dreaded sentence will undoubtedly pop up in households all over the world. Those words that send all parents scurrying to find activities to fill up those empty moments. “I’m bored.” is enough to send many parents into high crisis panic mode and bring a grown person to tears. I remember those days. One summer day, having 5 bored children under the age of 6 with one on the way, I quickly discovered a response to that dreaded statement. “That’s okay. Boredom is a fact of life.”

Why do we think every waking moment must be filled with something to do? Maybe boredom was invented to let our bodies take a much needed rest or to let our minds wander in the clouds for a hour or two or just to wiggle our toes through the grass. What did people do with their extra time before the computer, video games, or cell phones and text-ing, or even television for that matter? So, as a matter of personal sanity and survival that day, I wrote a list of 101 activities to perform at one’s leisure and posted it on the family message center-(we’re talking back in the day now)-the kitchen refrigerator. It began as follows:

The domestic engineer has heard a multitude of complaints today from some individuals in this household about not having anything to do and being bored. Boredom happens and these boring moments will not be the only boring moments one will experience in this life. However, in the interest of not wanting to appear unsympathetic, the domestic engineer suggests the following activities to be performed at your leisure or beckoning:

1. Clean your room.
2. Empty the dishwasher.
3. Clean and organize the art bin.
4. Practice hitting baseballs in the open lot down the street.
5. Play scrabble.
6. Make a scrabble game.
7. Fold a piece of paper lengthwise, write your name on one side, trace your name on the other side and create a symmetrical design.
8. Do the same thing as #7 with your last name too.
9. Take the ends of the old wax crayons, melt them down, and make a stained glass window picture.
10. Make a doll house complete with furniture out of those old shoe boxes in the upstairs linen closet.
11. Play hop scotch in the driveway.
12. Play jacks.
13. Stack books as high as you can without them falling.
14. Make a chart recording the number of books and type of books you used each time.
15. Write a play.
16. Make a puppet theatre.
17. Make puppets out of the mismatch socks in the laundry baskets.
18. Read a book to one of the little ones.
19. Shoot baskets and try not to miss.
20. Make brownies. (Grown up help needed.)
21. Make jello fingers to take to the pool.
22. Bake chocolate chip cookies.  (Grown up help needed.)
23. Find the matches for your socks (look between the pillows in the family room sofa and under your bed).
24. Spray paint pasta and string the painted pieces into jewelry.
25. Sell lemonade outside.
26. Read a book or two.
27. Pick wild flowers and press them.
28. Make pictures with the pressed flowers.
29. Make a scrapbook about school or whatever you want to remember.
30. Count the money in your piggy bank.
31. Read the dictionary.
32. Make a diorama with your super heroes.
33. Write and illustrate a comic book.
34. Make or draw a desert environment and the animals that live in the desert.
35. Make or draw a mountain range and the animals that live in the mountains.
36. Make or draw a tropical rain forest and the animals that live in the rain forest.
37. Weed the vegetable garden.
38. Weed the front flower bed.
39. Tie dye an old tee shirt.
40. Make a batik from an old tee shirt or fabric remnant.
41. Illustrate book covers for your favorite books.
42. Play gin rummy.
43. Play fish.
44. Play war.
45. Play solitaire.
46. Make and design playing cards then laminate them.
47. Use empty toilet paper tubes to make flutes or recorders.
48. Cut the grass.
49. Make a mobile and hang it in your room..
50. Make wind chimes from approved items found in the garage.
51. Make pot holders.
52. Make place mats for the kitchen table.
53. Use old panty hose and picture hanging wire to make flowers for a center piece.
54. Cover old wire hangers with scraps of material or yarn found in the sewing room.
55. Roll out a long piece of shelf paper and ask your brother or sister to trace your body outline so you can decorate it.
56. Do the same thing as #55 for your brother or sister.
57. After decorating the image of yourself cut it out and tape to your bedroom walls.
58. Draw zoo animals (huge ones) or make up new combinations of zoo animals on paper, cut them out and tape to bedroom walls.
59. Draw huge flowers on paper, cut them out, and tape to bedroom walls.
60. Go to the library and get your own library card..
61. Sit on Mom’s lap and tell her a story.
62. Sit on Dad’s lap and tell him a story.
63. Trace everyone’s hand in the family, color the figures, cut them out, and tape them to your bedroom walls.
64. Make a collar for the family pets.
65. Clean out the food bowls of the family pets.
66. Make a leash to match the collar for the family pet.
67. Make soap for bubble making.
68. Make a hoop to blow bubbles out of picture hanging wire.
69. Make a bird house out of the Popsicle sticks.
70. Make birthday cards for everyone in advance so you have them.
71. Read the Highlight magazines and do the activities.
72. Make a picture using colored gravel we use for the fish bowl.
73. Make a sand painting ( spray paint the sand from the sand box outside and let dry first).
74. Write and illustrate a book of poems.
75. Collect different leaves from the yard, look them up in the encyclopedia, and press them with wax paper.
76. Read the encyclopedia.
77. Write letters to your classmates.
78. Ride your bike.
79. Put playing cards on the spokes of the wheels of your bike and fastened them with clothes pins.
80. Make shoe laces for your sneaker with braided ribbon.
81. Make pictures with old buttons found in the sewing room.
82. Decorate your flip flops with polka dots and magic markers.
83. Write the lyrics to a song.
84. Make a silly hat or silly hats out of paper plates and cups.
85. Make traffic signs really, really big ones and put them on your bedroom door.
86. Make wind sockets.
87. Climb the tree in the back yard and read your book.
88. Play Navy in the bath tub.
89. Play croquet.
90. Play badminton.
91. Make Popsicles using Kool Aid and Dixie cups.
92. Make or draw the solar system.
93. Decorate your athletic socks with fabric paint.
94. Make candy.
95. See if you can balance a long dowel on one finger and how long can you do it.
96. Did I mention writing a puppet show and inviting your friends to it?
97. Count the number of trucks that go down the street.
98. Cut out pictures from the old magazines and write stories for your own magazine.
99. Cut out circles from old magazines and use them for scales on fish.
100. How many words can you make using the letters in your name?
101. Make designs using the shapes–like a square, a circle, a triangle, a rectangle, a pentagon, etc.

Note: The domestic engineer will gladly help anyone needing help gathering materials to complete some of the above mentioned activities.  See the ”domestic engineer” for baking permission and have a happy summer.