For the best results with your children, spend only half the money you think you should, but double the time with them. ¹

Kids don’t care about budget or how much things cost. We have toys we’ve spent hundreds of dollars on only to have the near free to free one be a hit. ²

Kids will generally have fun with anything you show a degree of interest in. The copper pipe plumbing example in this thread is a perfect example. A simple Task became a life long activity for the kid. They will remember it forever and tell someone in the future “this time I welded with my dad”… they won’t remember that time my dad didn’t hire a plumber. ²

If you ask a kid if they want pancakes or cereal for breakfast, they'll pick one and be delighted. If you ask them what they'd like to have without presenting options, this can lead to a complete meltdown. Picking from infinite options, forcing them to think all of them up and then turn down n-1 of them... It can be too much for a kid. ²

Things to do

• Go to a library or used book store twice a month
• Plant some plants
• Microscopes and other science projects
• Origami
• Electronics
  • Build a Phoniebox
• Lego

Games

I remember playing with my father who passed away a few years ago simple word games. We called that Word-building, a game where one player says a word and the next one has to say to word starting with the last letter of the previous word eg: Apple, Egg, Goose, Elephant and so on. Occasionally my father would say an uncommon word and when I asked him what it was, he casually pointed me to the dictionary, asked me to bring it and taught me how to use it. ²

Another game we played then is what we called Name-Place-Animal-Thing where we pick a letter and then have to say a proper name, a place name, an animal and a thing that starts with that letter. For eg: V -> Victor, Virginia, Viper and Vase. ²