Skip to main content

5 spring break activities for kids that you can do at home

Travel isn’t always an option for spring break, but the kids will be out of school whether you have plans or not. If you’re looking at a week at home and are thinking of things to do with your kids, we’ve got you covered.

Staying at home doesn’t have to be boring — far from it! With these spring break activities for kids, you’re going to create family-vacation memories without leaving town.

Science experiments

When they’re home on vacation, it is the perfect time to try out those science-fair moments you remember from your childhood, like the baking-soda volcano. Or, you can make some slime, see if you can put a pin through a piece of tape on a balloon without popping it, make a lava lamp, and (if you’re feeling really adventurous) stick some Mentos in a bottle of Coke. You can look up countless experiments to do, but it’s also fun to just wing it and throw things together in your kitchen and see what happens. Have some basics on hand: Food coloring, vinegar, baking soda, soda, and vegetable oil.

Scavenger hunts

This is a classic, and there are many ways to do it depending on your kids’ ages and what’s available in and around your home. Want to get outside? Go to the backyard or a nearby park and have your kids check off nature items like pine cones or squirrels when they spot them. It doesn’t get any easier than writing up a quick list and sending them outside to run around with an activity to keep them occupied. You could step it up a level by placing your own items from inside around the outdoor hunt space for them to collect in a bag and bring back in for you. Stuck indoors? The same ideas apply. Either have your kids mark on a paper that they’ve seen certain items (something red, something with batteries, etc.) or have them collect the items and bring them back as proof of a successful hunt.

Virtual field trips

Can’t go to an aquarium? Bring the aquarium to you! Choose a theme for each day of spring break and watch videos and do crafts related to the theme. For an underwater theme, you can take a virtual tour of an aquarium on YouTube, read books about fish, make a fish tank out of a cup, and break out some new bath toys. Plan ahead with library book requests, and if your kids are old enough, you could even have them email professionals in the field (just use the contact form at a zoo’s website, for example) to ask questions. If you search online for “virtual field trips,” you’ll find endless options like the livestream of the Old Faithful geyser or the virtual field trip to Ellis Island. Many museums, like the National Museum of Natural History, have their own virtual tours available on their websites, so search around based on your child’s interests.

Olga Pink/Shutterstock

Indoor camping

It’s fort time! This is your chance for an indoor picnic and for imagination to run wild. Cook hot dogs and s’mores (on the stove), pretend to watch for animals while you play forest sounds, and have a no-TV or no-electronics rule. If you have sleeping bags or a tent, break them out of storage and go all out. Even without a real tent, this is a great opportunity to drape a blanket over some chairs to make one.

Plant a garden

If you have any outdoor space for a garden bed, take advantage of the warming weather and the time off to get a garden started outdoors. If you don’t have a yard, you can plant in a window box (depending on your housing situation, you can hang it out a window or rest it on a windowsill). If you live in a city, you can find an urban community garden for a plot, too. No matter where you plant, let your kids take the lead in planning what they want to grow. Flowers? Herbs? Vegetables? Help them think about planning the seasons, choosing the colors, and learning about your local climate and native plants. They can take responsibility for watering them after the vacation is over and eventually enjoy the fruits of their labor.

The idea behind all of these suggestions is to work with you already have at home. Tap in to your kids’ interests and let loose to explore with them. When you do, you’ll all have a fun spring break.

Editors' Recommendations

Sarah Prager
Sarah is a writer and mom who lives in Massachusetts. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, National…
These are the best cities for kid-friendly vacations
Highest ranking cities for the best family vacations
Excited family boarding an airplane for family reunion

Planning a vacation for your family is stressful, which is ironic since vacations are supposed to ease your stress, not cause more of it! But, we all know that booking something the entire family is going to love is no easy feat and often results in you needing a vacation from your vacation.

But if the pandemic has taught us anything, it's how important it is to take that time as a family to enjoy each other's company outside of the normal stresses of everyday life. If you need a little help deciding where to go for vacation this year, Lawn Love has come up with a list of the best cities for kid-friendly vacations that's sure to inspire your family travel plans.
Criteria
Lawn Love looked at "publicly available data" around different factors when creating this ranking. When examining 200 of the biggest cities in the U.S., it created the following six categories to help make its rankings include staying, eating, having fun, getting around, affordability, and safety. These categories were assigned a weighted score, and the totals were averaged for the final ranking to come up with the best family vacation ideas.

Read more
See a mom out with her kids alone? Keep these thoughts to yourself – Say this instead (if you’re going to say anything at all)
Know what things to never say to a single mom
Mother laughing with her young daughter

When you see a man out with children alone, he gets praised, and everyone thinks he's such a good dad. He gets smiles and nods for being awesome and giving the mother time off. When you see a mother out with her kids alone, something implies she is struggling just to leave the house. She gets sympathetic eyes and head tilts. Before you speak, know that these are things to never say to a single mom if you see one out alone with the kids -- no matter what.

You sure have your hands full
We understand that sometimes word vomit spits out before it can be stopped. But if someone were to stop and look, they would see that a single mom out with the kids has her hands full -- literally and figuratively. From juggling drinks, snacks, the purse, and possibly a diaper bag to having eyeballs on all kids, the cart, and making sure a child isn't putting things in the buggy that don't go there, it's a lot to be in a store with kids.

Read more
Shower your kids with love on Valentine’s Day with these 5 ideas
These thoughtful ideas for Valentine's Day with kids will have your children feeling cherished
Valentine's Day envelope with hearts

Valentine's Day is known for being the most romantic day of the year. It seems that just after New Year's, one can't walk into a store without being bombarded with large boxes of overpriced chocolates and teddy bears with googly eyes.
And while the hearts and flowers can be lovely when you have a partner to share the romance with, a day dedicated to celebrating love should be for celebrating all kinds of love. Romantic love is beautiful, sure. But so is the love we experience in friendships, with parents and siblings, and of course, the otherworldly, incredibly powerful, unlike-anything-else, love we have for our children.
Valentine's Day is the perfect day to take a few extra special steps in showing our kids how much we care. Telling them how much we love and cherish them is hugely important, and something we should be doing daily. But on the official day of love, these fun ideas are some sugar-coated ways of expressing our hearts to our little ones when spending Valentine's Day with kids.

Fill their rooms with red and pink balloons the night before
Kids love balloons. That's just a fact. It's probably because they symbolize celebration. When balloons are around, it's pretty much a guarantee that a good time is about to be had. When your children hold balloons, they're holding a little bit of magic, and the joy that fills them is contagious.

Read more