Are you looking for inexpensive yet super fun ways to entertain your kids outside?
This is a list of activities that are fun (and messy but easy to clean up) outdoor games with components you can pick up from the dollar store!
Water Gun painting! Grab a poster board, water guns, and paint. Fill the water guns with WASHABLE paint, and water them down a bit so it flows. Set the poster board on an outdoor chair or hang it from a clothing line and show your kid to aim at the poster board. Fill 3-4 water guns with different colored paints and see a masterpiece!
Shaving Cream Body Painting! This is a great activity for when your kids need to mess something up but you don’t want to deal with too much mess. Pick up a largely white, plastic tablecloth from the dollar store and lay it out on the grass. Then squirt some washable paint in different areas, spray out some shaving cream all over the place, and let them make a dirty masterpiece! The shaving cream and washable paints hose right off.
Or after your Shaving Cream Painting, fill a pool with bubbles and let them take an outside bathing suit bubble bath!
Plant a garden! Kids love to watch the plants that they picked grow and you can turn this into a teachable moment about healthy eating and the importance of eating local, sustainable food. Besides, who doesn’t love tomatoes off the vine?
Grow a butterfly! While you’re out on a walk, check the Anise Plants for caterpillars. Put them in a little cage with air holes and give fresh Anise every day. In about 4-6 weeks you’ll have a butterfly.