Free/frugal things to do out of the house with kids

[Blueglobo]

What can you do with young children (12 and younger) on an outing that does not involve spending money?
I am excluding outdoor/nature related activities because that is obvious but not always possible in a city, or due to weather. And also in some cities there is not a lot of "culture" to take advantage of for free (eg. Museums, interesting pedestrian neighbourhoods).

I am currently a fan of libraries with children's sections, and bookstores with children's sections. Also community parades and festivals.

[KevinW]

Some of these apply:

http://earlyretirementextreme.com/wiki/ ... Date_Ideas

Other ideas:

- self-guided walking tours
- touristy points of interest (see http://wikitravel.org/en/Main_Page )
- public parks, playgrounds, beaches
- build a fort
- science experiments (ex. who can make a paper airplane fly the farthest, Bernoulli principle demo, build a sundial, magnetic fields in iron shavings, solar oven)
- BBQ and let the kids manage the fire and cooking
- backyard camping
- scavenger hunt, bird watching
- recreational sports (frisbee golf, badminton, lawn bowling)

[Blueglobo]

The date ideas reminded me of my cheapest date ever with my now DH. If you're Canadian, you'll understand the following.

Coffee at Tim Horton's- he got me a free coffee from his Roll-Up-the-Rim winnings, and a 25 cent TimBit doughnut. Same for him. Total cost = 50 cents.

A TimBit doughnut is like a doughnut hole donut. Much smaller volume and calories, but since the pleasure of such foods is to be found ONLY in the first few bites, it's a good deal.

[Devil's Advocate]

This isn't an outdoorsy thing (although it's as fun out of doors over picnics, say, as at home), nor is it remotely original, but reading together as a family is perhaps the single most "awesome" thing we've discovered, ever since time stopped being an exotic and rare commodity for me.

Most days we spend an hour or so reading aloud to each other, taking turns to read not very long portions.

Wife and I love it, naturally (what parents wouldn't be suckers for this kind of thing?), but best thing is kids love it too.

[1taskaday]

My 2 kids are young teens now,14 and 13,a very hard age to entertain.

We joined a gym with a pool for the Summer.Very cheap family membership for the 2 months of the Summer.

Yes, it would be more enjoyable to exercise outside for the Summer but they love gadgets
and playing with the gym machine controls as they exercise.
They would NEVER go running/walking outside (at this age) with me.
Needless to say I haven't been able to convince them to hit the pool yet.

We also buy drinks and sit around talking at the gym and use it as our daily socialization.
Much better than going to a shopping centre.

It takes hours by the time we're all ready to go, exercised etc but good for bonding and a fun time together.

[Dragline]

Got any water nearby? Kids will play in it for hours. If its shallow, they can build dams. Deep, maybe fishing for fish, turtles or crawdads.

I have three boys. When they were young, throwing rocks in water would entertain them for hours. Skipping the small ones and making the big ones go ker-plunk!

[jennypenny]

I'm hesitant to post ideas here because my brand of parenting isn't everyone's cup of tea. For example, I've let my kids use the old crib mattress to go 'sledding' down the basement steps.

I'm a big believer in ...
- getting them outside every day regardless of the weather
- letting them get dirty, and getting the house dirty in the process
- letting them experiment a bit even if it means something might get ruined or someone might get hurt

little kids:
-- Let them cook, and grin and eat whatever it is when they're done.
-- Let them 'paint' in the house. You can designate a wall along a hallway as 'their' wall and let them paint, marker, sharpie, or sticky all along the wall. Or paint the entire hallway in chalkboard paint.
-- Take pictures with a digital camera or phone. We would have 'theme' days where they would take pictures of different signs, buildings, trash cans, people, even bathrooms. We still do this when we travel. Sometimes it's just taking everyone's picture hanging upside down in front of touristy things or getting strangers to pose with us in each picture.
-- Make videos.
-- Have theme nights with a movie and homemade meal to match, like Mulan and Chinese food. (We still do this even though they're older now.)
-- Have theme weeks where they read a book and then visit related places as a treat for reading. This was easy in Philly with so many historical places. It's how I got the kids to read The Red Badge of Courage, Johnny Tremain, etc.
-- Take tours of places to see how things work. Most places like water treatment plants, factories, and such will give you a tour if you call or let you tag along with another tour.

Teens:
I think they're easier. They can ALWAYS go outside. Playing stick ball in bathing suits in the pouring rain with baby pools as the bases is soooo much fun. Mine also like things like manhunt. I let them build anything they want. We have quite a collection including a chair cut from a log, a catapult, a trebuchet, a chair made from spare bike parts, a bike made from lawn equipment, ramps, forts, etc. We play lots of card games including casino games (to my MIL's horror). They love to camp in the yard. Potato guns are fun. So is blowing up some shaving cream.

And +1 to water activities. We belong to the town pool and go to the beach frequently. We even go in the winter. We love when it snows and you can sled down the dunes into the surf.

There are a million things to do once you let go of the rules.

[saving-10-years]

@Blueglobo - things to do do not need to be outings. So things like planning (writing, rehearsing and performing) a play, or constructing ans populating an art gallery can be fun over several days. Invite friends to take part or act as the audience. Perhaps charge a small admission fee which can be given to a charity.

[george]

I am from a large family brought up in a city but with a garden. We used to have a project now and then. One of them was a small wooden container which we all drew on, sometimes used chalk because we could redo it every day. Turned it into an outside hut. They could find something to sit on, a table and chairs.

of course sometimes there wasn't a container or it was falling apart. then we would pull it apart and use whatever we had and turn it into a tree hut or a small fence.

so perhaps think huts. also think a square of garden, let them plant some seeds, plants.

if we couldn't go outside. clear a room, get a sheet some chairs. looking back it was a case of us going to our parents with ideas until they said yes, thats ok. but most of the time we were roaming the neighbourhood with our friends on our bikes.

board games were the best, but depends how many children and whether there's a few already into them. I had a class of 30 children recently and was surprised how few understood how to play basic board games. Board games are fantastic for learning, almost any board game will do from charity shops. large jigsaw puzzle, wasjig?

If you have a computer with a camera they can make funny videos. Pretend they're making there own soap opera and then they can show you the end result. Charades, create their own skit.

they could all create their own story book. One group gets the beginning, one the middle, the other the end. Combine only at the end.

theatres sports, there must be heaps of idea son line. put on their own music dancing
theres so much, let them give you the ideas and you can be the person who says yes or no.

[george]

outings included picnics, visits to the central city. we had a choice if we made our own way there we could have the bus money. if we bused we had to find our own money. museums, gardens. Can you take them to other schools playgrounds or do they shut them off when the school is closed - we did that often.