100+ Ideas On How To Spend Quality Time With Your Child

By Julia, mother of two



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I enjoy spending a lot of time with my children, and I am sure you do too. There is no question that spending time with your child in a positive mood mutually benefits you. It forges the unique connection between you two and makes you both feel content and needed. Because of how quickly time passes, you run into the risk of missing these crucial moments, which you will later regret. However, as you are reading this article now, I trust you are on the right track.


Everyone finds it monotonous to play the same game or perform the same task repeatedly. To overcome this, it is important for parents to think of creative methods to spend quality time with their children. You will probably find something that is ideal for your circumstance in the list below, whether you are looking for one-on-one date ideas, such as mother-son date ideas, mother-daughter date ideas, dad-child date ideas, or family activity ideas.


To make it easier for you to navigate, I divided this extensive list of activity ideas into four categories: indoor activities, outdoor activities, indoor home-based activities, and outdoor home-based activities. The given list of activities is by no means exhaustive and you are free to come up with additional ones. Just always make sure that the chosen activities are age-appropriate and safe.




Indoor activities

  1. Visit an aquarium
  2. Go to the cinema / theater / opera / ballet / concert
  3. Visit a museum / gallery / observatory
  4. Go to a science museum
  5. Enjoy time in an activity park
  6. Play on an indoor playground
  7. Challenge yourself in an escape room
  8. Go ice skating
  9. Play curling or hockey
  10. Go shopping
  11. Take a car / tram / bus ride and get to know better your surroundings
  12. Relax in a spa salon / hotel side by side
  13. Go to a restaurant or cafe, choose some new place each time
  14. Visit a sports event
  15. Go to a swimming pool
  16. Play billiards or bowling
  17. Take some classes together to learn something new or acquire new skills
  18. Have your haircuts done together
  19. Go to a library and browse the variety of books. Pick some to read
  20. Go karting
  21. Fly an airplane in a flight simulator
  22. Enjoy a free flight wind tunnel
  23. Visit a public sauna




Outdoor activities


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  1. Go to the beach (sea, lake, river) or open-air pool, if the weather is suitable
  2. Go to a restaurant or cafe with an open terrace
  3. Play outdoor sports, like volleyball / basketball / soccer / tennis
  4. Do cross-country skiing (in winter)
  5. Visit an open-air activity park
  6. Have fun in an amusement park
  7. Fly a hot air balloon
  8. Go to a zoo
  9. Visit a retro car exhibition
  10. Visit an airshow or car racing show
  11. Ride bicycles
  12. Go on a scavenger hunt. For instance, the Halloween scavenger hunt (included in the Halloween Busy Book) or Christmas scavenger hunt (included in the Christmas Busy Book)
  13. Go fishing
  14. Help someone (for example, do grocery shopping or cleaning for them)
  15. Visit a fish market or harvest festival
  16. Go Nordic walking
  17. Go camping
  18. Go hiking
  19. Go climbing (could be an indoor activity if there are such facilities in your town)
  20. Play mini-golf
  21. Visit a farm
  22. Go for a horse ride
  23. Go berry picking
  24. Sell something at a flea market
  25. Participate in the community events
  26. Watch fireworks
  27. Take a hop-on hop-off city tour




Indoor home-based activities

  1. Read aloud
  2. Create your own bedtime story
  3. Make bookmarks / postcards. Check out the Halloween greeting card (included in the Halloween Busy Book) or Christmas cards and bookmarks (included in the Christmas Busy Book) as well as the Shapes-themed bookmarks
  4. Listen to the music or sing
  5. Watch movies till late at night (avoid making this a habit)
  6. Create a drawing or painting together
  7. Do crafts (I am sure, you have lots of toilet paper rolls that you have not yet turned into cute animals)
  8. Make origami
  9. Fill in a blank calendar. Take a look through our collection of printable calendars for this activity
  10. Pretend play (hospital, police station, etc.)
  11. Create a home theater
  12. Make something creative using playdough or modeling clay (cars, flowers, animals, etc.). Learn shapes while enjoying this fun activity
  13. Cook or bake
  14. Decorate a cake together
  15. Organize a race of the remotely controlled cars
  16. Play board games or cards
  17. Play toy billiards or bowling
  18. Enjoy free play using your child’s favorite toys
  19. Do science experiments
  20. Assemble a jigsaw puzzle / cutout puzzle. Get cute cutout puzzles for Halloween (included in the Halloween Busy Book) and Christmas (included in the Christmas Busy Book). Discover alphabet cutout puzzles in the Early Literacy Set or learn 12 famous paintings in the Free Famous Painting Puzzles Set
  21. Watch movies or documentaries (There are numerous videos on the Internet about how things are made or how they work. This kind of info might be interesting for both you and your child)
  22. Watch your old photos and videos. Talk about events from your life
  23. Practice sewing / embroidering / knitting
  24. Have a “hug” day. Just simply hug each other and sit together for some time chatting
  25. Plan decoration or renovation of the house together
  26. Plan a party, for example, a birthday party
  27. Do online shopping
  28. Explore the souvenirs you once brought home from your trips. Tell the story behind each object
  29. Do fitness exercises together
  30. Learn the hula hooping
  31. Build a tent
  32. Play with building blocks
  33. Utilize activity books. Get printable ones to save money and use them multiple times for one or more kids
  34. Color coloring pages. Grab our free coloring and dot-to-dot pages
  35. Play in a shop or cafe. Exchange the roles
  36. Search for a treasure. Create a quest game
  37. Do chores together
  38. Create a budget and teach your child the financial literacy
  39. Dance together
  40. Make paper mache (papier-mâché)
  41. Relax by a fireplace. In case you don’t have one, try to turn on such a video
  42. Play hide-and-seek
  43. Take an online course together to learn a new language




Outdoor home-based activities

  1. Do gardening or grow herbs
  2. Plant a tree
  3. Enjoy water play or bubble play
  4. In winter, make a snowman
  5. In winter, freeze colorful ice cubes and build a castle
  6. In summer, make a sand castle
  7. Make and fly a kite
  8. Observe the Moon and other objects in the Solar System via a telescope. Download the Free Solar System Busy Book with 30 pages to have even more fun
  9. Cook food on a barbecue or grill
  10. Organize a picnic or lunch outdoors
  11. Draw with chalks on the sidewalk
  12. Build a birdhouse
  13. Clean the common areas in your neighborhood
  14. Wash your car
  15. Re-organize your garage or storage space




As you can see from the quite extensive list of activities above, there are tons of ways to spend time together with your loved ones in a fun way. Do remember to take pictures. This way, you will have something to watch on your one-on-one date next time.



How often should you spend time with your kid(s)?

I will keep my answer to this question simple: daily. However, because we never get the same day again, the duration might and will vary. Based on my own experience, you do not need to plant a tree together every day, a good habit of reading books as part of your bedtime routine will serve the purpose. Alternate the activities as much as you can and do not set a timer to any strict duration, remember we are not robots but humans. Make this special time joyful for both of you.