10 Kids' Crafts And Activities Under $10

It's Summer again and parents are looking for fun ways to keep their kids stimulated and fight off summertime boredom. Finding affordable, easy and fun ways to keep your children occupied can be overwhelming. Below is a list of 10 crafts and activities that cost $10 or less to do and are tons of fun for kids and adults alike. Most of the materials can even be found at a dollar store!

Things You'll Need:

• A Pool Noodle
• Marbles
• Scissors or a box cutter
• Painter's tape or duct tape

To create a racecourse out of pool noodles, help your child cut the pool noodle lengthwise in half. Each half is now a racetrack for marbles. Tape the top of each side of the pool noodle to a wall, the back of a chair, or another surface. Now it's all set up! Let the kids put marbles at the top and watch them slide down the race track!

Things You'll Need:

• Tape
• Toy cars

In keeping with the race course theme, this super easy craft can be done with items you likely already have at home! Simply design a car track by using tape on the floor, then allow your little ones to race toy cars around the track you've made!

Things You‘ll Need:

• Poster board
• Stickers (optional)
• Markers
• Inspirational quotes and photographs

One of our favorite crafts so far this Summer has been creating dream boards with my older kids. Your child can choose to focus his or her dream board on their goals for the year, or their long term goals and dreams. Find quotes and photos to cut out that go along with the theme of the dream board and paste them to the poster along with some of the child’s goals. Decorate as desired and then hang in your child’s room for daily inspiration!

Things You’ll Need:

• A bar of ivory soap
• A microwave

This simple activity is so fun and the outcome is great for sensory play as you can mold the soap into different shapes. Just place the ivory soap in the microwave and watch as it begins to take the shape of a fluffy cloud.

Things You’ll Need:

• Popsicle sticks
• Paint, markers or crayons
• Glue (hot glue or wood glue is best)

What could be cuter than a home made fairy house or fairy garden? Simply glue the sticks together to make them into a house and paint or color as desired. You can even use popsicle sticks to make a picket fence to surround the fairy house and paint stones to go in the fairy garden.

Things You’ll Need:

• Painter’s tape
• Canvas
• Paint

Another easy craft for kids is tape canvas painting. Simply tape the portions of the Canvas was you don’t want to paint, then paint the rest. After the paint is dry, peel the tape off of the canvas and voila! You have a simple but beautiful masterpiece.

Things You’ll Need:

• Small to medium sized bin (you can use a plastic bin or a cardboard box or aluminum roasting pan)
• Sensory materials (Sand, soil, water or slime and small toys all work great)

For this craft, fill the bin with sensory materials and let your child feel around and play in the box. Depending on how messy the materials you selected are, this activity may be better done outdoors.

Things You’ll Need

• A cheap journal or notebook
• Pens or markers
• Stickers (optional)

This super fun craft gives children the opportunity to customize their journal and encourages writing. Have them decorate their notebook with stickers, markers, or other materials you have around the house, then let them write away in their new extra cute journals!

Things You’ll Need:

• Rocks/stones
• Paint
• Paintbrushes

This activity is great because finding rocks to paint is an outdoor activity that can give your child some time to run their energy out outdoors then later, your child can paint the rocks however they want. Some people choose to hide the painted rocks in public places, while others choose to put the rocks in their garden or around their home.

Things You’ll Need:

• Socks
• Buttons or glue on eyes
• Yarn (optional)
• Felt sheets (optional)
• Hot glue or fabric glue

Finally, sock puppets. These are extra fun and easy to make and even more fun to play with. You can use yarn as hair, buttons for eyes, and felt cut into the shape of lips to create an adorable sock puppet. Then encourage creativity and imagination by helping your child write a script for a puppet show!

This completes my list of affordable and fun crafts and activities for kids. What activities would you add to the list? Comment below and share your ideas!