Don’t rely on others to entertain you

Know when you’re likely to get bored and plan for this

If you can’t go outside, have fun inside

Make long car journeys an adventure

Write down lots of ideas and put them in a jar.  When you’re bored chose one to do.

Waiting for others is often a time that boredom can set in so it’s best to be prepared. Take a book or a  favourite toy or game (something you can do on your own).

There’s heaps you can do if it rains - you can hold a concert, have an indoor picnic, cook (with the help of an adult), paint, dance around to music, write a story create a scavenger hunt or even draw a picture!

To hold a scavenger hunt one person writes down a list of things you have to find, some easy, some hard (they all have to be things that you will be able to find where you are – like inside the house or within the back yard etc(.  Then you have to find them... for example a pair of red socks, a spatula, and a funny looking hat!  When you’ve found everything, someone else can write a different list. 

Then there’s board games (Bryan and Bobby’s favourite is called Scrabble)

If you’re going on a car journey then play games like I spy, spot the colour (when one person chooses a colour and the first person to find a car of that colour scores a point) or twenty questions, just to name a few.

Listening to stories is an excellent way to pass the time while in the car too...and there are plenty of talking books you can either buy or get from the library
Have a sing song in the car (Bryan and Bobby’s favourite is a song called Swinging on a star)

You can even map out where you’re going.  You can make a list of all the exciting land marks and tick them off as you go past them in the car.

If the weather’s nice go outside.  There are lots of things to do in your own backyard.  Like Four Square, Go Home, Stay Home, Swingball, and Hopscotch. Slippery slide...You could even do some gardening if it’s the right time of year (but ask first)

Then there are all the sports games too: League, Netball, Rugby, Soccer, Hockey...practice your skills and your game will get better next time you play.

You might want to try using an outings jar.  One idea is to write down lots of things to do.  Each day you pull a piece of paper out to see what you’ll do for that day. For example: Go to the museum, library or park. Or have a friend over for a sleep over.

Weird and wacky facts about Boredom

One of the world’s best soccer players a man called Pele from Brazil was so poor that his family couldn’t afford a soccer ball so rather than get bored he used to practice his soccer skills using an orange !

The first record of the word boredom is in the novel Bleak House, by Charles Dickens, written in 1852,

Challenge someone with a pencil and paper and ask them if they write a sentence backwards, without looking in the mirror. Sounds easy enough but try writing the letters J, F, and R backwards :0)
Create a symbol or number code for each letter in the alphabet and write it down. Then share the code with only a few people and see if others can work it out

Create your own crest...by drawing some of the most important things about you and then make a crest which shows people what makes you special
Learn to play a musical instrument or even better make your own muscial instrument
Learn some magic tricks from the internet or books from the library and then either put a show on for somebody or amaze your friends at school...remember practice makes perfect :0) Here is one of Bryan’s favourites :

Salty Cards
You will need :
• 1 normal deck of cards
• A good pinch of salt secretly stored in your pocket

How the Trick looks to others :
With nothing more than kicking a deck of cards you can tell which is the chosen card.
How it works :
Have a shuffled deck of cards on the floor. Have a person look through the deck and pick a card. Have him/her place his card on top of the deck. Now have them cut the deck into five piles. (Remember the chosen card is on the top of the first pile.)
Now by pointing to the piles have them put the deck back together in a different order.
The trick is that as you are pointing at the card piles, instructing the person who chose the card to put them back together... you take a pinch of salt and drop it on top of the chosen card as you point to it. (Smart eh?)
Then lightly kick the deck of cards with your right foot, slide into the cards to make them glide to the left.
Examine the deck; the place in the deck with the most distance between one card and the next is the chosen card.
MAKE SURE that you practice this trick before doing it with somebody so you get a feel for how and how hard to kick the cards, and how to "see" the chosen card.