Activities Under $10 For Summer Fun

Those hot days during the summer can be challenging when you have kids. Too hot to play outside and too expensive to take them places. No wonder so many parent dread summers!

We have some suggestions for the little kids that can help you entertain the troops without breaking the budget wide open:

Marble Races:

Take one pool noodle and cut it in half long-wise. Place them side-by-side on an incline (stairs are excellent or use a chair set) and have a shoe box at the bottom. Have a child at the top of each noodle half put a marble at the top of each noodle and see which one lands in the shoe box first.  This could occupy them for hours if you make a game “best out of 3” with winner choosing lunch or snack.

Balloon Ping Pong

Two paper plates, 2 large popsicle sticks, and one air filled balloon are needed. Tape a popsicle stick on the backside of each plate with part hanging down to be the handle.  Have the kids bat the balloon back and forth with each other over the dining room table.    

Olympic Popcorn Race

Pop up a big bowl of popcorn and give 2 kids a straw. Set a starting point and a finish line and have them race each other blowing through the straw to get their kernel of popcorn across the finish line first.

Yarn Mission Impossible

Stretch yarn in well-placed design down a hallway, or up the stairs (depending on how old the kids are) and crisscross, over-and-under the yarn then challenge the kids to be the first one through the maze.

Simple Things Can Be Entertaining

Use marbles as mini bowling balls and cone-shape pencil erasers as mini bowling pens. Give a toddler some pipe cleaners and a colander, then watch them create! Or cut up some clean sponges and let the kids stack them like blocks! Toddlers will be busy dropping things through a paper towel core taped to the side of the refrigerator into a bowl or box.