New here? Get fun kids play ideas from us all year round!
Want a quick email from me each weekend with seven great play-based learning ideas for the week ahead? NurtureStore’s Play Planner is already sent to over 30,000 families every week – so, join us!
If you’d like to have a copy of the weekly play planner delivered straight to your e-mail in box, pop your email address in the box below.
By subscribing, you consent to our use of your personal data as per our Privacy Policy, which includes agreeing to receiving interest-based email from us.
Screen Free Week ideas
Just as a healthy diet can certainly include cake, so a balanced childhood can include screen time. Family movie nights, skyping with Grandma and typing stories on the laptop are all great fun. It’s just there are so many other fun thing to do if you step away from a screen.
If you’d like to spend a little more time with the kids, and without a screen, whether for an hour, a day or the whole week, here are 100 fun kids activities you could try.
Click each idea to see the full details.
And you can print off the list at the bottom so you really can log off and go play.
Step away from the screen and play
1.With shadow puppets 2. In the jungle 3. With chickens 4. Under the sea 5. In space 6. With water beads 7. In a bath of jelly 8. On a building site 9. Camping 10. Yoga 11. Dressing up 12. Pirates 13. With potatoes 14. Dinosaurs 15. With homemade play dough 16. With toothpicks 17. Washing up 18. With salt dough 19. Mad hatters 20. With your feet
Step away from the screen and cook
21. Jam 22. Bunny rabbits 23. Lovehearts 24. Marshmallow lollipops 25. Child-made soup 26. Chop chop salad 27. A snowman 28. Homemade cornettos 29. Welsh cakes 30. Maths cocktails 31. Eggs 32. The alphabet 33. Snowflakes 34. Cookies 35. A rainbow 36. A gingerbread man 37. A gingerbread house 38. Mini meringues 39. A car 40. Ice cream play dough
Step away from the screen and make
41. Caterpillars 42. Butterflies 43. A robot 44. A town 45. A playground 46. A marble run 47. An incy, wincy book 48. A superhero peg doll 49. Your own doll 50. A meadow 51. A horse riding stables 52. Chocolate play dough 53. A weather station 54. Beautiful candle holders 55. Rockets 56. A boat 57. A dinosaur land 58. A den 59. Story stones 60. A comic
Step away from the screen and be arty
61. Try blow art 62. Set up a painting station 63. Decorate flower pots 64. Explore symmetry 65. Reverse print 66. Make a roly poly painting 67. Try contact paper art 68. Use oil pastels 69. Print with flowers 70. Go big! 71. Paint with marbles 72. Create a self portrait 73. Make a marvellous hat 74. Thread an art bag 75. Try old materials new ways 76. Make a store cupboard collage 77. Spin! 78. Try waterpainting 79. Paint outside 80. With cotton buds
Step away from the screen and play outdoors
81. Make tree gargoyles 82. Make mud pies 83. Plant a tree 84. Create cement art 85. With worms 86. With bugs 87. Go on a treasure hunt 88. Play in a rock pool 89. Create a fairy garden 90. Make a miniature garden 91. Grow some seeds 92. Start a garden journal 93. Plant sunflowers 94. In a story tent 95. Build a sandcastle 96. Make a bird cafe 97. Wear woodland jewellery 98. Hand print a sunflower 99. Race snails 100. Hunt mini beasts
Print the list, log off, go play!
Printable screen-free week kids activities
Super Sensory Invitations to Play
Ready for a whole year of exploring through the senses? Super Sensory Invitations to Play is a delightful resource that encourages your children to explore the five senses through the year, using a wide variety of sensory materials. It includes 52 invitations to play, linked to the festivals and seasons of the year, and including water, ice, dough, rice, paints, sand, sensory tubs, and more.
They are easy, simple, and fun ideas that you can use right now to give a multi-sensory boost to your play and learning. It comes with a printable recipe book featuring all our favourite recipes for play. Come and see more here.
Oh I wish I’d read seen this post this morning! But at least now I have 100 great ideas if next weekend is as wet and miserable as this one has been. Will be ‘camping’ tomorrow afternoon after school before trying out the chocolate play dough 🙂 Thank you for the inspiration!
Excellent post! Love all the ideas!
What a fantastic compilation of fun ideas! Enjoy your week away x
Great list, thanks for taking the time to compile and link all the ideas
OMG blow art that brings back memories for me, and I totally agree, she says typing away! Screen free week. I just removed the PS3 from the boys today as it’s getting too much and it’s too easy to stick a child in-front of a screen while you get on with other things. Many thanks for the tips I shall definitely make a conscience effort to attempt these! x
These are great ideas for any time of year when boredom strikes. Thanks for the comprehensive list! Just pinned! Vicky from http://www.messforless.net
Have a post going up on Friday about Screen free ideas and sharing your post as well!
My 2 girls aren’t plugged in much at any point in the year, so this list will be awesome for us! I pinned you so I won’t forget to use your awesome ideas 🙂
Thank you so much for linking up to our Summer Activities Blog Hop. This list with links is such a great resource for Screen Free Summer Fun!
Great list guys and a fantastic site over-all. We have school holidays coming up over here (Australia) and this list is going to be well used in this house.
I have put a link up for all my firends to see of my site. Thanks a bunch.
Wonderful list. Sharing!
You could try “Upside down man or woman” Using eyeliner draw two dots on your chin for eyes (you could decorate more elaborately) and lay across a bed letting your head drape off the side. Then, cover your nose and eyes so your kids can see only your upside down mouth and chin and talk to them. It inspires some great and hilarious conversations! This ALWAYS cracked my sister and I up when my mother did it when I was a kid and now my son loves it as well…
I got a stack of clear “shoe” boxes and marked each one with it’s contents/or project name and lined them on the shelf ready for use any day any time. They are getting used daily and make it very easy to clean up! The games are stacked up right next to the boxes…so who needs t.v.?
Since we moved into our new house in October we have had no Television signal.
We kept the TV so we can have movies nights, but just after new year the dvd player broke and we haven’t bothered to replace it as we don’t really miss it>
we still have a movie on the laptop for movie nights and do other things.
It’s not as bad as you think lol
Lol Annie – I agree, it’s not as bad as you think! We’ve had no TV for over 6 years (my how time flies!) Like you we have our laptops for any viewing we really want to do. I really do love having to make a little extra step to watch something though. For us I find it makes it an intentional choice which we then enjoy more, rather than just a lazy habit.
I must say that having Netflix versus cable has minimized our screen time significantly in general!
Hi could you make a step by step tutorial to design those beautiful banners of yours with photoshop? Thanks!
Hi Chiara. Do you mean the images for the blog – like the Play Planner one? I use Picmonkey – have you tried it?
Love your website – we use it to find inspiration for our play-based early learning centre in Papua New Guinea.
Thank you Kerry – lovely to hear from you. It’s so fun to make connections around the world. Going to show my girls where Papua New Guinea is on our globe!