Screen Time Alternatives: 50 Things Kids Can Do Instead

You already know screens are not great for kids. You do not need another lecture about blue light, attention spans, or dopamine loops. What you need is a practical list of things your kids can actually do instead — things that do not require three hours of setup, a trip to the craft store, or a degree in early childhood education.

That is what this list is. Fifty real activities, organized by energy level and type, that work for kids across a wide age range. Some require zero preparation. Some need a few supplies you probably already have. None of them require a power outlet.

The truth is, most kids do not need screens nearly as much as we think they do. What they need is access to interesting materials, a bit of unstructured time, and parents who are willing to tolerate some mess and boredom along the way. The boredom part is actually important — we will get to that at the end.

Quiet and Calm Activities

These are the activities for rest time, wind-down time, or those moments when you need twenty minutes of peace to make dinner. They are low-energy, low-mess, and most of them require almost no setup.

1. Drawing with Real Supplies

Skip the coloring books and give kids blank paper with quality colored pencils, markers, or crayons. Open-ended drawing builds more creativity than filling in someone else's lines. Keep a dedicated art box accessible so kids can grab supplies without asking.

2. Listening to Audiobooks

Audiobooks are one of the most underrated screen alternatives. Kids can listen while building with LEGO, drawing, or lying on the couch — all the relaxation of screen time with none of the downsides. Your local library app probably has thousands of free options.

3. Jigsaw Puzzles

Keep a puzzle going on a side table or puzzle mat. Kids can work on it whenever they have a few spare minutes. Start with puzzles that match your child's skill level — too easy is boring, too hard is frustrating. For preschoolers, 24-piece puzzles work well. School-age kids can handle 100-300 pieces.

4. Reading or Looking at Books

This one is obvious, but it bears repeating. A well-stocked bookshelf at the child's level, a cozy reading nook, and unstructured time are all most kids need. If your child is not yet reading independently, picture books and graphic novels still count as meaningful engagement.

5. Playing with Playdough

A ball of playdough and a few tools — cookie cutters, a rolling pin, a butter knife — can hold a child's attention for a surprisingly long time. Homemade playdough costs almost nothing and lasts weeks in a sealed container.

6. Doing Handwork

Depending on age, this could mean finger knitting, loom bracelets, simple sewing, or cross-stitch. Handwork is meditative, builds fine motor skills, and produces something the child can keep or give away. Many kids who resist sitting still will do handwork for half an hour without complaint.

7. Playing with Magnet Tiles or Building Sets

Magnet tiles, wooden blocks, Lincoln Logs, or other building sets are open-ended enough that kids return to them over and over. They work for ages two through twelve if you have a good enough set. Leave them out on a low shelf rather than buried in a closet.

8. Working on a Sticker or Activity Book

Sticker scenes, dot-to-dot books, maze books, or seek-and-find books give kids the satisfying focus of screen time without the screen. Keep a small stash for moments when you need a guaranteed quiet activity.

9. Playing with Sensory Bins

A plastic bin filled with rice, dried beans, kinetic sand, or water beads plus a few scoops and small toys is a reliable calm-down activity for ages one through six. Rotate the filling material every week or two to keep it interesting. For detailed ideas on building sensory bins, our guide to sensory play ideas for preschoolers has everything you need.

10. Listening to Music or Podcasts

Put on a kids' podcast or an album and let them just listen. This is a lost art. Children used to sit and listen to records — there is no reason they cannot do the same thing now. Some kids will draw or build while they listen. Others will just lie on the floor and stare at the ceiling, and that is perfectly fine.

Active and Energetic Activities

These are for the moments when your kids are bouncing off the walls and clearly need to move their bodies. Most of these work indoors or outdoors.

11. Building an Indoor Obstacle Course

Use couch cushions, pillows, chairs with blankets draped over them, tape lines on the floor, and whatever else you can find to create a circuit. Time each run with a stopwatch for extra motivation. Our full guide to indoor obstacle courses for kids has 15 station ideas you can set up in minutes.

12. Having a Dance Party

Turn on music and dance. That is the whole activity. You can add freeze dance (pause the music, everyone freezes) or dance-off competitions if you want structure, but honestly, just dancing is enough.

13. Playing Backyard Games

Tag, capture the flag, hide and seek, kick the can, sardines, and red light green light all require nothing but space and willing participants. These games have survived for centuries because they work. If you need more backyard game ideas, we have a full collection of backyard games for kids that covers classics and new favorites.

14. Jumping Rope

A single jump rope or a long rope for group jumping provides vigorous exercise with minimal equipment. Teach kids rhymes and games to go with it — the social aspect makes it stick.

15. Riding Bikes or Scooters

Send them outside with their bikes, scooters, or skateboards. Set up a chalk course on the driveway. This requires almost no parental involvement once kids can ride independently.

16. Playing Catch or Kicking a Ball

A ball and a partner. Throwing, catching, kicking, and dodging are fundamental movement skills, and most kids will do them happily for longer than you expect.

17. Wrestling and Roughhousing

Supervised roughhousing on a soft surface teaches body awareness, impulse control, and physical boundaries. Set clear rules — no hitting, no biting, stop when someone says stop — and then let them go.

18. Doing Yoga or Stretching

Kids' yoga is available through books, card decks, or simply making up animal poses together. "Be a tree," "be a frog," and "be a cobra" are enough instruction for most children.

19. Running Relay Races

Set up start and finish lines in the yard or hallway. Race to the line and back, carrying an egg on a spoon, balancing a book on your head, or hopping on one foot. Relay races turn ordinary running into a game.

20. Playing with a Hula Hoop

Hula hooping, rolling races, using hoops as targets, stepping through a series of hoops on the ground — one inexpensive toy, many possibilities.

Creative and Messy Activities

These activities require some tolerance for mess, but they produce deep engagement. Lay down a drop cloth or old sheet, put kids in clothes you do not care about, and let them go.

21. Painting with Tempera or Watercolors

Give kids paint, paper, and brushes and let them paint whatever they want. Process over product — the point is the painting experience, not a gallery-worthy result. Tape paper to the table or use an easel to prevent it from sliding.

22. Building and Playing in a Mud Kitchen

An outdoor mud kitchen is one of the best investments in screen-free play you can make. Kids will spend hours mixing, pouring, stirring, and "cooking" with mud, water, leaves, and sticks. A few old pots, muffin tins, and wooden spoons are all the equipment you need. If you have not built one yet, our guide to mud kitchen ideas for your backyard walks you through the whole setup.

23. Doing Simple Science Experiments

Baking soda and vinegar volcanoes, color mixing with food coloring and water, making slime, growing crystals, or building a simple catapult from popsicle sticks. Kitchen science requires supplies you already have and produces genuine wonder.

24. Playing with Water

A basin of water, some cups, funnels, turkey basters, and sponges can occupy a child for an hour. Add food coloring, dish soap for bubbles, or small toys for washing. Move it outside in warm weather for maximum freedom.

25. Sculpting with Clay or Salt Dough

Air-dry clay or homemade salt dough (flour, salt, water) lets kids sculpt, roll, and shape three-dimensional creations. They can paint their finished pieces once dry.

26. Making Collages

Old magazines, catalogs, scrap paper, fabric scraps, natural materials, glue, and scissors — that is all you need. Collage is accessible for very young children (tearing and gluing) and satisfying for older ones (designing intentional compositions).

27. Doing Chalk Art

Sidewalk chalk on a driveway or patio is low-setup and easy to clean up (rain does the work). Draw pictures, trace bodies, create obstacle courses, or just scribble. Wet the chalk for more vibrant colors.

28. Finger Painting

For younger kids especially, finger painting is deeply sensory and satisfying. Use washable finger paint on large paper, or let them paint directly on a tray or table and make prints by pressing paper on top.

29. Making Homemade Playdough or Slime

The making is the activity. Measuring, mixing, stirring, and kneading are all valuable, and kids are more invested in playing with something they made themselves. Keep recipes simple and use ingredients you have on hand.

30. Building with Cardboard Boxes

Save large boxes from deliveries. Kids can turn them into cars, houses, rockets, boats, storefronts, or robots with nothing more than tape, markers, and scissors. Cardboard construction is one of the most underrated creative activities available.

Social and Cooperative Activities

These activities work best with siblings, friends, or parent involvement. They build social skills, negotiation, and the ability to share space and ideas with other people.

31. Playing Board Games or Card Games

Board games teach turn-taking, strategy, graceful losing, and cooperative problem-solving. Start with simple games for young kids and build up to more complex ones. If you are looking for recommendations by age, our guide to family board games with no screens covers the best options for every stage.

32. Building Forts

Blanket forts, pillow forts, cardboard box forts, or outdoor stick shelters — fort building is collaborative engineering at its finest. The negotiation involved in building a fort together ("Where does the door go?" "I want a window!") is as valuable as the building itself.

33. Playing Pretend or Dress-Up

Imaginative play is one of the most important things children do. Provide a box of dress-up clothes, scarves, hats, and props, and then step back. Kids will create elaborate scenarios with minimal prompting. A few capes, crowns, and old Halloween costumes go a long way.

34. Cooking or Baking Together

Children as young as two can help in the kitchen — stirring, pouring, kneading, washing vegetables, and measuring ingredients. Older kids can follow simple recipes independently. The finished product is edible motivation, and the process builds math skills, sequencing, and patience.

35. Putting On a Play or Puppet Show

Give kids a "stage" — a doorway with a curtain, a table turned on its side, or just an open space — and let them write and perform a play or puppet show. Sock puppets or paper bag puppets take five minutes to make and provide hours of performance material.

36. Playing Charades or Guessing Games

Charades, twenty questions, I Spy, and other guessing games need no materials at all. They work in the living room, in the car, at restaurants, and during long waits. These are worth teaching to your kids because they become a default boredom solution.

37. Having a Picnic

Indoor or outdoor, a picnic changes the energy of an ordinary meal. Spread a blanket on the living room floor or the backyard and eat sandwiches. The novelty is the point. Kids who will not sit at the table will sit happily on a blanket.

38. Working on a Group Art Project

A large piece of butcher paper taped to the floor or wall, with everyone contributing, produces something no individual could make alone. Murals, collaborative collages, or group painting projects teach kids to share creative space.

39. Playing Outdoor Group Games

Kick the can, ghost in the graveyard, manhunt, spud, and four square are the kind of games that keep a group of kids busy for an entire afternoon with zero adult involvement. Teach your kids a few and then step back.

40. Building Something Together

A birdhouse, a garden bed, a simple shelf, a stepping stone path, or a LEGO city — working on a shared building project teaches cooperation, planning, and the satisfaction of creating something lasting together.

Independent and Self-Directed Activities

These activities are for the times when kids need to entertain themselves — and when they learn that they can. Independent play is a skill, and like all skills, it gets stronger with practice.

41. Building with LEGO

LEGO (or Duplo for younger kids) is the gold standard of independent play. Free building without instructions develops more creativity than following step-by-step kits, though both have value. Keep LEGO accessible in sorted bins.

42. Observing Nature

Give kids a magnifying glass and send them outside. Watching ants, examining leaves, looking at bark patterns, following a butterfly, or just sitting quietly and noticing what birds are around — nature observation requires nothing but attention and patience.

43. Writing or Drawing in a Journal

A blank notebook and a good pen or pencil set can become a child's most valued possession. Younger kids draw. Older kids write stories, keep diaries, make lists, or design inventions. The privacy of a journal is part of its appeal — do not read it without permission.

44. Doing a Self-Directed Research Project

When a child asks a question — "How do bridges work?" "What do octopuses eat?" — hand them a book or a trip to the library instead of reaching for a search engine. Let them find the answer themselves and present what they learned.

45. Practicing a Musical Instrument

If your child plays an instrument, self-directed practice is one of the most valuable independent activities available. Even ten minutes of daily practice builds discipline, focus, and the deeply satisfying experience of getting better at something over time.

46. Gardening

Digging, planting, watering, weeding, and harvesting are all tasks kids can do independently once shown how. Give them their own small bed or a few containers and let them choose what to grow. Sunflowers, cherry tomatoes, and herbs are reliably successful.

47. Doing Chores

This sounds counterintuitive as a screen alternative, but many kids find genuine satisfaction in real work — especially when they can see the result. Sweeping, wiping counters, folding laundry, organizing a drawer, or washing windows are all activities that build competence and independence.

48. Building Models or Doing Craft Kits

Model airplanes, paint-by-numbers, friendship bracelet kits, origami, or perler beads all provide structured independent activity with a finished product at the end. Keep a small supply of kits on hand for days when kids need something to do.

49. Writing Letters or Drawing Pictures for People

Writing a letter to a grandparent, a friend, or a pen pal gives children a real audience and a real purpose for writing. Supply stationery, stamps, and addresses, and let them take ownership of the correspondence. The excitement of getting a letter back is powerful motivation.

50. Just Going Outside

This is the simplest and often the most effective screen alternative on the entire list. Send your kids outside with no agenda, no activity, and no specific plan. A yard, a park, a trail, or even a sidewalk is enough. Children who are given unstructured outdoor time will invent their own games, explore their environment, and move their bodies — which is exactly what they need. If you want to add a bit of direction, our list of outdoor nature activities for kids has ideas that work for all ages and seasons.

How to Transition Away from Screens

If your kids are used to significant daily screen time, switching to these alternatives will not happen overnight. Here is how to make the transition without everyone losing their minds.

Reduce gradually. Cut screen time by fifteen to thirty minutes per week rather than eliminating it all at once. Replace each removed screen session with a specific alternative activity.

Prepare the environment. Make screen-free activities visible and accessible. Put art supplies on the counter, leave puzzles out on a table, keep building materials on low shelves. If the alternative activities require asking a parent for help or digging through a closet, kids will default to requesting screens.

Expect resistance. The first one to two weeks will be the hardest. Kids who are used to screens will complain that everything else is boring. This is normal and temporary. Their brains need time to adjust to lower stimulation levels. Stay consistent and the complaints will fade.

Create screen-free zones and times. Mornings before school, mealtimes, and the hour before bed are good starting points. Once screen-free times become routine, kids stop negotiating because there is nothing to negotiate.

Model the behavior. If you are on your phone during screen-free time, your kids will notice and resent the double standard. Put your phone in another room during screen-free hours. Read a book, do a puzzle, or work on a project alongside them.

Give it three weeks. Research on habit formation suggests that new routines become automatic after roughly twenty-one days of consistency. The first week is hard, the second week is easier, and by the third week most families report that their kids have stopped asking for screens during screen-free times.

The Boredom Jar

A boredom jar is exactly what it sounds like: a jar filled with slips of paper, each with one activity written on it. When your child says "I'm bored" (and they will), they pull a slip from the jar and do that activity.

Here is why this works: it removes the decision-making burden. Children often say they are bored not because there is nothing to do, but because choosing what to do feels overwhelming. A boredom jar makes the choice for them.

How to make one:

1. Write thirty to fifty activities on slips of paper. Use the list in this article as a starting point.
2. Let your kids help write the slips — they are more likely to do an activity they helped choose.
3. Put all the slips in a jar, can, or box.
4. When a child says "I'm bored," they pull a slip and commit to trying that activity for at least ten minutes.
5. If they genuinely hate it after ten minutes, they can pull another slip. But most of the time, ten minutes is enough to get them engaged.

The boredom jar also works as a preventive measure. Some families pull a slip first thing in the morning and use it as the first activity of the day, before boredom even sets in.

Why Boredom Is Actually Good for Kids

Here is the part that feels counterintuitive: boredom is not a problem to solve. It is a feature.

When children are bored, their brains are doing something important. They are scanning their environment for possibilities, generating ideas, making connections, and learning to self-direct. The discomfort of boredom is the engine that drives creativity. A child who is never bored is a child who never has to invent their own entertainment — and inventing your own entertainment is one of the most important skills of childhood.

Research from the University of Central Lancashire found that people who experienced boredom before a creative task produced more creative results than those who did not. Boredom primes the brain for creative thinking.

This does not mean you should ignore a child who is struggling. But there is a difference between a child who says "I'm bored" and needs a nudge (that is what the boredom jar is for) and a child who has been given space, materials, and time and has not yet found their groove. The second child just needs you to wait. They will find something. They always do.

The goal is not to fill every moment of your child's day with structured activity. The goal is to provide an environment rich with possibilities — art supplies, building materials, books, outdoor access, open-ended toys — and then step back and let your children discover what they want to do with their time. The fifty activities on this list are not a to-do list. They are a menu. Your kids will find their favorites, and once they do, the screens will matter less and less.