Spring break is just around the corner, and if you’re staying home during this school break, I’m sure your looking for some spring break activities for kids! These 22 ideas are simple, fun, and inexpensive.
Before we get started, let me start by saying that it is ok for kids to be bored. Don’t feel pressured to have a spring break activity for kids planned every single day. The best play happens when kids are bored!
Like I said above, these are some simple and fun activities you can do when you are looking for something to keep your kids occupied, learning, or burning that never ending energy while they are home from school.
Free [Or Mostly Free] Spring Break Activities For Kids
1. Visit Your Local Library
The library is one of our favorite places! From browsing for books, playing in the kids section, making new friends, doing the scavenger hunts… the library on it’s own is great fun! However, the library often offers even more! Check your local library for kids activities, meet ups, book clubs, reading challenges, and more! In any case, your local library is sure to have some great spring break activities for kids planned.
2. Reading Challenge With a Prize At The End
Correspondingly, you can create your very own reading challenge for your kids. This challenge can as simple as to to read a certain number of books over spring break. Similarly, you can create a reading bingo card (ie. read outside, read a book about animals, etc)!
If you need a little inspiration, Janssen at everyday reading has some really cute free reading logs. Likewise, she shares awesome book recommendations!
Finally, once you’ve figured out your challenge, choose a prize they will get at the end of challenge.
A few prize ideas:
- Go out for ice cream
- Pick a new toy from the store – the dollar store is great for this if you don’t want to spend much.
- Pick the movie for family movie night
- Go to the zoo, indoor playground, etc.
3. Make Something Based on A Book You Read
Making something based on a book can be a simple craft or recipe! For example, my daughter loves Pete the Cat. In one of his books, Pete makes a special treat for a bake sale at school. With this in mind, we chose to recreate his treat, and it was so much fun! This is a great activity to get creative with.
4. Nature Walk Seek And Find
A nature walk seek and find is as simple as it sounds. First, go for a walk! Second, try to find certain things. You can create a list, a bingo card, etc. Or on the other hand, just go for a walk and see what you can find!
Bonus activity, you can make it extra fun by making binoculars with toilet paper tubes.
5. Make Wild Flower Seed “Bombs” and Toss Them Places
As we all know, wild flowers are great for pollinators. With this in mind, we made these wild flower seed bombs at the library one time. All you will need is some wild flower seeds, (check your local hardware store or nursery. Seeds are pretty inexpensive too!), dirt, and water.
- Step one: make mud with the dirt and water. You want it to be nice and thick so you can make dirt “pancakes”.
- Step two: For your mud pancake in your palm.
- Step three: sprinkle some seeds in the middle of your mud pancake.
- Step four: Roll it up into a ball with the seeds inside.
- Step Five: Finally, toss your seed bombs places the seeds can grow! Look for places that don’t get mowed often so the seeds can take.
6. Plant Seeds and Keep Track Of Their Growth
In similar fashion, you can plant seeds in your own yard, or plants that have already been started. After you have planted your seeds, have your kids observe the plant each day and keep track of how it grows. You can also try planting a few different plants and place them in different environments and see which one grown best. All in all, it’s like a no pressure science fair project!
7. Make a Fairy Garden With Things You Find Outside or Recyclables
This one is great because it can be stretched out for a few days. Not to mention, it is magical and fun! My kids and I did one of these and they had a great time looking for sticks, rocks, bark, pinecones, etc for the fairy garden.
And just for fun, I told them that if the fairies like it, they will move in!
- First, take one day to go for a walk and collect items for the garden. You don’t even have to know what you would do with it at the moment, just add it to your collection and decide later.
- Anything can work! We picked up all kinds of random trinkets we found laying around. One of my favorite things was a braided piece of yarn that we turned into a fairy swing.
- With this in mind, let your child’s imagination take over! Some things my kids wanted to use in their fairy garden, wouldn’t have been my choice. However, listening to the things they were coming up with, and what they were imagining something could be was so sweet!
8. Play Catch or Backyard Baseball
Baseball: America’s past time! This is a great family bonding activity, and it can be so much fun! If you don’t like baseball, choose a different sport, make up your own rules, or even create your own game! See where it goes! As a matter of fact, playing catch is great for gross motor skills, hand eye coordination, team work, and learning to be a good sport.
9. Roller Skating
You can roller skate around your neighborhood, or visit a roller rink! Yep! They still exist! Roller skating is a great activity for developing gross motor skills, and exercise! We all know kids are overflowing with energy, so activities that can burn some of that off are a huge win in my book!
10. Go For A Family Bike Ride
When I was a kid, my dad would have us all get on our bikes and we would follow him without him telling us where we were going. One in a while, he would end up taking us to A&W for a frosty mug of root beer, or to the ice cream shop. These bike rides are one of my most favorite childhood memories. And once again, this is another great activity for gross motor skills, and burning off some energy!
11. Have a Family Sleepover
Start off by setting everyone up with a floor or couch bed in the living room. Next, play games, eat snacks, build a fort, watch movies… just like when you were a kid! If it’s nice outside, move your sleepover to a tent in the backyard! Without a doubt, this will be a memory that will live forever in your children!
12. Bake Something
The possibilities here are endless! Cookies, cake, muffins, brownies, cinnamon rolls, dirt pudding, bread, bagels, biscuits, the list could go on and on! Don’t forget to check out my cooking with kids tips to make this a breeze!
13. Make Tie-Dye T-shirts
This one is for the particularly brave, and is definitely recommended for older kids. That being said, tie dye is a really fun activity! And to make this easier on yourself, can find tie-dye kits at your local craft store, Walmart, Target, Amazon, etc. This will be a fun activity and your kids will love wearing their own creation!
On the other hand, if tie-dye totally freaks you out, you could also just have them draw on a white t-shirt (or pillowcase) with fabric markers. Additionally, this option is definitely more young kid friendly.
14. Make Ice Cream In A Bag
Making ice cream in a bag is super fun, and a great science experiment!
What You Need:
- Two gallon zip freezer zip bags
- 1/2 cup whole milk
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 Tbsp sugar
- 1/3 cup of salt – rock salt works best, but you can use what your have on hand
- Ice
- First, add milk, sugar, and vanilla into one of the zip bags. You can add chocolate syrup if you would like chocolate ice cream.
- After you’ve added the ingredients, squeeze the air our of the bag, and zip shut. Shake and squish the bag to combine the ingredients.
- In the second gallon zip bag, add ice until it is about half full. Then add the salt.
- Place the bag with the milk, sugar, and vanilla inside the bag with ice. Zip the ice bag shut.
- Next, shake, shake, and shake some more until your ice cream freezes (around 10 minutes.)
- *Tip: Have your child wear gloves or wrap the bag in a towel so their hands don’t get too cold!
- Finally, add some toppings and enjoy your ice cream, straight from the bag!
15. Create a Paper Mural
Creating a paper mural is easy! Start off by drawing or color a new picture each day of break. Secondly, add it to your mural! (My favorite thing to hang paper items on the wall is sticky tack.) As a result, you will have a beautiful creation, and it will be fun to see how your mural turns out at the end of break!
Other Spring Break Activities For Kids
16. Visit the Zoo
We love visiting our local AZA accredited zoo! Not only is it fun to see and learn about the different animals, there are usually really fun spots to play throughout the zoo as well.
17. Take the Kids to An Indoor Playground
Similarly to the zoo, indoor playgrounds are an absolute blast, and a great way to burn off some energy! I’ve been noticing that these places are becoming more and more popular, so look up your area and see what you can find.
18. Check Out The Science or Children’s Museum
As stated above, availability will be dependent on your area. Science museums and children’s museums are super hands on and really fun! Even adults have a great time here!
19. Visit a Farm
A quick internet search will turn up different results for farms you can visit. It’s a great way for your child to learn where their food comes from, play, and see the animals.
20. See a Movie at the Movie or Drive in Theater.
Personally, we love the drive in! It’s so relaxed, you don’t have to worry about kids being too loud or moving around. As a matter of fact, we love taking pillows and blankets and making the car super cozy for the movie!
21. See a Play At a Local Theater
As a former theater kid, this one is one of my favorites. Look for local theater or high schools and go see a show! Different from seeing a movie, theater is immersive, and so fun. And at the same time you care supporting local artists, which I know the actors love!
22. Go Bowling
My kids love bowling! (In fact, they call is rolling ball, which is the cutest!) Bowling such a fun activity, as well as being great for hand eye coordination, strength and more. One thing to remember, don’t take yourself too seriously and just have a great time!
Some Final Thoughts On Spring Break Activities For Kids
In conclusion, spring break activities for kids don’t have to be complicated or expensive. There are a lot of fun things you can do at home, sometimes it just takes a little creativity.
And as I said before, don’t feel overwhelmed or pressured to plan activities every day or constantly keep your kids entertained. As a result, I am certain they will find ways to entertain themselves
Do you or your family have any spring break plans? I’d love to hear about them in the comments below!
You are doing a great job!
