Children (5 - 10)

Apart from playing with their friends there are creative ways to amuse this age group.

1. Create some craft activities - potato stamping, cutting and pasting, colouring and painting are all cheap ways to engage your children for a while. Even making some play dough is a great activity.
   


2. Organise an excursion - children love to explore and experience new sights and sounds however creating an excursion doesn't mean hauling them off to some theme park which costs mega-dollars. If you live in the city, take the kids out to the country and vice versa. Make a day of it by packing a picnic as well.
   


3. Utilise shopping centre activities - shopping centres often organise school holiday entertainment in the hope of attracting you to spend more at their shops. Organise your weekly grocery shop around one of the activities which are usually offered for free.
   


4. Community activities - many community groups offer some great activities for children in this age group that are either cheap or free. Find the best ones and book the kids in.
   


5. Explore the library - most cities and towns have their own public library. Apart from books, many libraries also carry games, jigsaws and other activities for kids.
   

Children (10-13)

Many children in this age group are a little TC (Too Cool) for activities in the first age bracket but there still many ideas you can implement.

1. Plan a community project - like all children this age group love to do things yet they are more open to doing them within the context of the family. Find a need within the community and set about creating a project to meet it. It doesn't have to be a "save-the-world-project" yet it can focus on just helping one person like weeding an elderly person's garden or something of that nature.
2. Create a scavenger hunt - plan a list of items that will give the child some focus to go and gather. They can range from things that would range from being easy to source to be extremely difficult and challenging. Sourcing things that normally require a cash purchase but not allowing them to use cash can make it much harder and increase the experience.
3. Organise a concert - this is always big in our family. Our kids love to perform so any opportunity given to achieve this in front of an audience of friends or relatives is readily accepted and produces some great family moments (and photos for the 21st Birthday!)
4. Camera Scavenger Hunt - this is a variation on the scavenger hunt theme but performed with a camera instead. The child is given a list of items to source but rather than collecting them they need to provide photographic evidence of finding them.

Children (13-17)

1. Plan to go busking - if your child in this age group has some musical or creative talent, challenge them to go and busk in a local mall or public space. The advantage is they could earn some extra dollars but even if they didn't the experience would give them an incredible buzz.
2. Set up a holiday business - pictures of a lemonade stand on he sidewalk spring to mind but helping your young person develop their own business for a period would make a great project. They could do window or car washing, walking people's dogs etc. They would need help to create some business flyers to generate some interest and the project will help them with many required future skills - like talking to people.
3. Have friends sleepover - allowing your child to host their friends can keep them amused for days (well...hours anyway). This can be tied in with a DVD-marathon than can last an entire afternoon or evening.
4. Organise the family photos - kids have a great handle on technology these days so getting them to produce a computer presentation with the family photos will get their creative juices flowing.

When planning your activities you need to take the seasons into consideration. Obviously, there's no guessing that a beach activity won't work in winter and an excursion to the snow in summer is a tad outrageous.

As always, saving money requires preparation and a little organisation. Having a list of cheap fun ideas is great but if you exhaust them within the first couple of days you'll find that your back at square one and the "I'm bored" comment will resurface.

While this list is hardly exhaustive it may help you generate your own ideas to amuse your children over the school holidays.