12 ideas for indoor activities - free/budget

Build a house of cards - old cards are best as they are not so slippery. You can build towering block of cards! Example in YouTube clips below

Build a den - under the dining table, inside up turned sofas or between the arm chairs - 100's of interesting ways to build a secret den Cool example in YouTube clips below

Bake/cook - scones, sausage rolls, cakes, crucnhies, pancakes, pizza - lots of ideas and sometimes you can even have the result for dinner!

Make some play dough - Make the dough and then have hours of fun designing all sorts of models. You can even make models of the whole family, pets and all. You can also paint the end result and use them for xmas decorations - instructions on the YouTube youtube clips below.

Draw - illustrate a favourite book or story. No matter the age of the child this can be great fun and can be as colourful as you like. From Dr Seuss to Harry Potter. As the child moves along with story it's great to see how the skills improve!

Write a letter to the priminister or the queen - have an issue that you'd like addressed - for example kids get too much homework - or we need a bigger skate park in our town. do something about it!

Paper plane - Design the best paper plane and see whose flies futherest - Great clip in the YouTube clips below and there are loads of pages on the internet with useful tips!

Monster - Cut up old magazines and design your very own monster - Man's head, ladies body, childs arms... this can be great fun and all those string bean models can make pretty good monsters!

Color matching. Without telling the why have your kids pick something at colourful at random then they must find ten items in the house or garden that are the same color.

Double duty. How many items can your children locate that have more than one purpose, such as a stepstool/chair?

Two by two. Send your children through the house to find everything that comes in pairs, like shoes, bookends, socks, or closet door handles

Majority rules. What single item in your house outnumbers all others? The answer can be practical (light switches) or silly (pieces of yarn in your carpet).

12 ideas for outdoor activities - free/budget

Go for a picnic - this can simple be in the garden or in the park, with lots of frineds or just with parents and sibling. Get the kids involved in the preparation.

Gardening for kids - growing some vegies or flowers/plants at any time of the year can be fun rewarding and that dreaded word, educational! See video clips YouTube below

Try and find a constellation of stars - Venus, the morningstar, the north star. Orion is a great place to start.

Take your camera for a walk - what a great way to see the day through your kids eyes. You could ask them to take a photo of everything that made them want to smile. Makes for a wonderful momento and you can make the end result into a Christmas gift calendar

Make ice candles - My girls love this and brilliant thing to in the winter and it hardly costs a thing. They can be colour and bright and you can leaves, flowers even glitter into the ice. See the great clip in the YouTubeclips below

Drawing on the pavement - chalk only! ;-) Childhood isn't childhood unless you draw where you shouldn't! Check out some amazing pavement art in the YouTube clips below.
You can even earn some money doing this.

Make and fly a kite - this can offer hours of fun and doesn't cost very much at all - a couple of clips in the YouTube clips below which might give inspiration!

Clothesline art - kids get their dirty laundry (better rthan the clean stuff!) and peg the clothes into monster shapes and people on the line. Can be a lot of fun and imaginations can run wild.

Bug hunt - Each child has a certain patch of a certain size and they have to find how many bugs there are in that little area and try and identify them. See the YouTube clips below.

Scavenger hunt - this can be great fun. Adult supervision necessary - see sample on the YouTube clips below.

Bird watching - spot birds and describe the difference, sharp beak, long beak, curved beak, what colour are their feathers? Which is the biggest? The quickest? Check out the YouTube clip
Thanks to Andy, Jamie and Christopher for this idea!

Build a tree fort - can be as low or as high or as complex as it needs to be! Can be made out wood, plastic, blankets or can even be verry grand. See the YouTube clips below