THE best way to stop the "I'm bored" moans is to provide great ideas children can use to learn more about their world. These activities do not need to cost anything.

Here are some ideas from my book, The Joy of Reading, which you can attempt with your preschooler or school-going child.

Go visiting

Children are able to construct quite complicated thinking skills about the changing face of their environment. Stimulate their senses by taking them to places they have never been. Try the following places:

• A stream: Make a dam together with pebbles and rocks to alter the water flow; or just collect stones or rocks.
• The park: Teach them the joy of climbing trees, riding a bike, running in the open air, or having a picnic. Collect leaves or seeds and find out what type of trees they come from.
• A swimming pool: Use words such as dive, swish, wriggle and splash to increase their vocabulary while they are having fun.
• A museum: Look at comparisons from the past to today. Observe dress styles, the food people ate and the tools used.
• A harbour: Take the children to watch the cranes load and unload cargo ships or see people working on the boats.
• The airport: Read the destination boards to the children. Let them peruse the maps, spot different airline boards, listen to people from other cultures, and watch the planes take off and land.
• The streets: Go at different times of the day, in all types of weather. Extend language by describing how the weather feels on your skin or how the weather affects your senses. Walk during the day or at night. Walk on quiet streets and on busy ones. Allow your children to come up for a basis of comparison between each setting.
• The library: Help them select books of their choice. Take home and read them with the children at once! Find some with science experiments or simple recipes. Go through the steps together and then try them out.

Fun at home

If you need to be at home, there is still plenty of other activities you can do that children love. Among them are:

• Rearrange their bedroom: Help them move furniture around to their preference. Label all of their things and arrange in a new way.
• Grow a garden: Select some simple vegetable or pretty flower to grow. Chart how long it takes to appear. If it is a vegetable, hunt out recipes you can use to cook it. Press and dry any flowers you pick from it. Many plants can be grown in pots.
• Go on an insect hunt: Make sure you don't choose anything dangerous. Make a habitat to keep the insect(s) in. Use books to help you find out what it needs to eat and survive.
• Do box constructions: Use boxes to construct a robot, a car or a monster. Paint the boxes and add decorations to make them look interesting. Tell a story about your creation. Your child can tell you the story and you can type it out for them to read, or they can write it themselves.
• Plan a special family dinner: Using simple recipes from your library visit, let the children help you prepare a special dinner for the family complete with proper table setting and hand-written menus.
• Play card games or board games: Read the rules together to work out how to play the game. When you know it well, have your child teach someone else the game without using the written instructions.
• Plan a work roster: Let the children plan and make a help-at-home roster to keep the house clean. Write down all the jobs and work out how to show who is doing what.
• Play-acting: Act out a favourite story or write a completely new story. Have a show for the neighbourhood children complete with programmes and costumes.

Rachel Goodchild can be contact at rachel@snapeducational.co.nz.