Activities!!

[AshleighMach]

I feel my 3year old DS is gifted (not going to go into all the reasons) and he gets bored easily. He loves to play make believe and we do a type of unschooling- homeschool with him. He learned how to read a few months ago, and we are in need of new activities to challenge him!! The house gets a little crazy if he is not focused on something!! Anybody have any good games or activities they do with their child? I've tried the educational computer stuff but he gets bored easily! He is very interested in the body and how things work!!! 

[eepster]

Does your city have a recreation department?  They may offer activities.  We do a bunch at our rec center.

[whatsnextmom]

When the kids were little, we got out of the house daily. I'm a better mom on the go and the kids were happier with their home time after a fun outing. We took advantage of all the free days at the local museums. We got year passes to the zoo. There weren't many classes available outside of baby gym prior to 4 but once they turned 4, we took advantage of them. We went tide pooling at the beach. We hiked the local mountains. We went to different parks in the city. These outings were stimulating to the kids, wore them out physically and made home life more manageable.

We did have some home activities we liked. I reccomend a kitchen science experiment book as well as regular cooking. My kids also liked the "Kids Concoction" books that have loads of activities using regular household items. There were times they were bored and just had to entertain themselves and I don't think that's a bad thing either.

[KCMichigan]

We, too , have gotten out of the house almost daily.

We did library storytime since they were very small, mall-walked, gone grocery shopping, etc. They are actually very good on outings because I take them everywhere-often. We have had days that were just crazy or they were naughty, but overall they do very very well around town.

We also have done music class,dance class, drama class, art class, etc usually only one class at a time--it has been nice to expose them to so many things and doing them one at a time does not break the bank. Rec center and Y programs are affordable (much more than private programs).

Around the house-- they love to play with boxes, stickers, etc. Days we dont get out much- we rotate stuff. Playdough, puzzles, cooking tools, etc. It helps to have a 'routine' in place of play---so they free play, but it is broken into chunks of time ( free play, art play, science play, lunch, nap, gross motor play, household chore play (cooking/cleaning) etc).

One of my DDs is very intersted in the human body. We traced her on a large piece of butcher paper and then added her 'parts' (red/blue lines for veins, red blob for heart, brain, stomach....etc. It was a blast and was a project that lasted a few days and was much talked about.