No one likes waiting at the restaurant. However, these activities for kids will give them something to do while waiting for the food to arrive. All you need is blank paper, a pencil, and some markers to provide fun for kids. These things to do with kids are easy and provide a bit of direction and challenge that can be more exciting than doing the dot-to-dot and the maze that may appear on a paper placemat.
Make Dot-to-Dot Puzzles
Make a simple drawing on a piece of plain paper. Draw in pencil but then go over the final drawing with a dark marker, which will make the lines easy to see. Remember that dot-to-dot puzzles tend to follow a simple outline with a few lines drawn in for details like eyes on a dog or windows on a house. Now, follow along the outline, writing numbers in numerical order.
The numbers should follow a logical order that would allow someone else to recreate the picture. In a dot-to-dot, you usually don’t draw over the same section twice. Take a new, blank sheet of paper and set it over the drawing with the numbers.
Looking through the paper, write the numbers only on the blank paper. Draw dots next to each of the numbers. Add in any details that won’t be created by connecting the dots. Trade puzzles with someone else.
Design a Postage Stamp
You’ll need white paper and markers. Children can draw the design for one postage stamp over a sheet of paper or they can divide the paper into four sections and draw a stamp in each quarter that have some theme in common.
Draw a Family Flag
Think about what your family likes to do together, what your parents do for work, what you and your siblings do outside of school, what everyone has for hobbies. Now try to incorporate images for those ideas into a single design. Sketch out your idea onto a sheet of white paper. When you like what you’ve drawn, color everything in with markers.
Design a Cereal Box
Come up with the name of a new cereal and design the front cover. What will your cereal offer people – fiber, extra vitamins, super powers? Combine words and images to create a box so appealing that people would have to take it off the supermarket shelves.
Draw a Map
Draw a floor plan for your home or your school. You could also draw a map of your neighborhood or a favorite place. Imagine that someone who has never been to this place will use this map to help them get around. Include useful details (usually, things that aren’t going to move easily, like a table and chairs) that a person could use to make certain that they are in the correct place.
Challenge yourself to remember how big rooms are or how far it is from one place to another. When you get home, you can give your map to someone and have him check how things match up to your memory.
Crazy Hands
Trace your hand on a piece of paper. Repeat so you’ve traced your hand at least three times. Allow the tracings to overlap. Shift the paper before doing each tracing so the hands are going in different directions.
Color in the hand shapes but with a twist – each time you come to a line, change colors. So, each time part of your hand overlaps part of another tracing, change the color of the crayon or marker you are using. The final effect will be an explosion of color.
Past Present Future
Hold the paper horizontally and divide a piece of paper into thirds. Label the first column “Past,” the middle column “Present,” and the last section “Future.”
In the section labeled “Past” draw a picture of yourself as a baby or draw pictures of the toys you played with when you were younger. In the “Present” column draw images of yourself as you are now. In the last column you can draw a picture of you working at your grown-up career, a picture of your future home, or anything else you think you’ll be or have in the future.
Want other types of fun and games to occupy kids? Look to Don’t be Bored Fun and Games, Word Games to Play, or even Cool Math Games to keep kids of various ages busy when waiting in restaurants, doctor’s offices, and car repair shops. Keep a tote bag filled with supplies that you can grab and go.
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