day forty three: the 'bored' jar

the completed 'bored' jar!

day forty three and i know a fair proportion of the world are having school holidays ... some for summer, some for term break, but regardless of holiday and no matter how prepared and excited you and the kids are during this time, every now and then parents get the "i'm bored, i don't know what to do" from their peeps!

have no fear parents and caregivers, shayna from shaydes of life has a solution from her childhood ... the bored jar~!  whenever a peep in her house uttered the phrase "i'm bored" they would have to go to the jar and do the activity they pulled out without whining, ifs, or buts! her mum put in lots of good stuff like have an ice cream, ride bikes for an hour, play with chalk, but there were also some nasties in their to discourage the use of the 'bored' phrase ... so if you did utter it, you took your chances on whether saying it was worth it!

all the bits you need :)

i thought this sounded like a great idea, its a great solution for a problem that sometimes (not often) rears its ugly head AND will prevent me from getting grumpy with the child who is bored!  this ideas is pinned onto my home school projects board on pinterest. i grabbed a nice cheap, but cheerful jar from a local store and some attached some scrapbook letters to the outside.  the inside is full of ideas some nasty, some fantastic, some so so :) i ended up with about fifty activities in the jar, some of them are below.

some bored jar activities: make a sculpture out of pipe cleaners, vacuum upstairs, have a shower, make some cookies, clean the windows in two rooms, sweep the decks,  make a house with lego, do some chalk drawings on the concrete, play hopscotch, watch a dvd, write a letter to send to a relative, make a sculpture out of 32 lego bricks, read the book closest to your bed for 40 minutes, make a hut in the forest, make a birthday card using stamps, wash the front of the kitchen cupboards, play top trumps, computer time for 40 minutes, build a fort in your bedroom using blankets, bake a cake to give to a friend, make a piece of art using only pasta, make four pompoms, ride your bike for an hour, paint a picture, tidy up the classroom, rake up the cabbage tree leaves, make a boat out of fruit and vegies that will float, write a list of 20 words being with D, make a puppet from a sock, etc

take your chances with this jar!

outcome:  i think the kids are running scared, nobody has dared mentioned being bored!  so from this, i can tell you the jar is a TOTAL success! its so funny, watching them look at the jar with weary eyes not knowing if this is going to be a good or a bad thing for them when they say that WORD THAT SHALL NOT BE NAMED!  i have also decided that when one is taken out i will replace it with a new one so they know that once its gone it may not reappear for a while and i am also going to put some seasonal ones in their (eg: swimming in the summer, inside activities for winter)

may thanks to shayna from shaydes of life for blogging about her childhood and this wonderful idea to alleviate the boredom problem when it arises!