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I would love to get your suggestions for afternoon activities to suggest, prepare, make available to my son. We finish up most of our school a bit after lunch. I give the kids free time from about 1:30-3:30 and then we gather for story time. Lately, my son (7 in May) gets bored quickly from free time. On days that I say "no school today" he does not do well with the lack of structure. (Bored, whines, feels sorry for himself) My daughter is very crafty and will have some idea in her mind, sewing, making something, etc. Except for storytime and helping with dinner, there is not much I am initiating in the afternoon. I would love to see him interested in something. He is quite imaginative and tends to get into one thing at a time. (Currently, that is football, but that gets a little lonely too all by yourself). I will let him play chess on the computer for 30 minutes or so. He used to love to draw, but he doesn't really play with toys much anymore. He is not reading well yet. Does anyone have any ideas for me or things I could be doing better to help him?

Well, I don't know if this will help, but I can tell you what my son (who also doesn't do so well without structure) stays busy with in his "free" time. He LOVES books on CD. We check them out from our library. We've checked out Tom Sawyer, Judy Bloom books, recordings by Jim Wiess of various stories and folk tales, and even the Story of the World CDs, Beverly Cleary books... He loves to listen to those! He also loves to play with his Lego sets, Kid K'nex sets, Lincoln Logs, Stickle Bricks - anything he can build with. He usually listens WHILE he plays with something like that. He can play with those for quite some time alone. But, he goes in phases. He might play with Legos for weeks, then not at all for weeks. Of course, my kids have also learned it's not such a good idea for Mom to see they are "bored" because I can always find nice boredom busters, like washing the baseboards!

If it's nice out, he likes to go outside to play. But, he does much better if I suggest something like, "I wonder if you'd be able to find any worms in the back yard?", or "Try to find at least 5 cool rocks to add to your collection.", than if I just tell him to go outside and play.

I'm sure others have suggestions as well, and I'll be watching to get some new ideas myself!

I have done something with my 7 yo ds that has worked really great. We sat down and made a list of all his activities and types of toys, such as; arts/crafts, legos, army guys, Star Wars toys, K'nex, castle/knights, matchbox cars, rc toys, etc. At the beginning of his free time, I select three options from the list. He gets to choose one. He then sets a timer for 30 minutes and must play with those toys for that amount of time. When he is done, he has to put it away. He is having so much fun with toys that he hasn't played with in a long time. He really gets creative and has a great time. Only allowing him 30 minutes with any one activity keeps it from getting old and boring. He actually looks forward to the next time he gets to play with it. I then allow him some screen time. This has worked so well with my ds. It may be worth a try.
Laura

Edited to add: I am going to take him for some sewing lessons. Hush, don't tell dh! I have a little sewing machine from my childhood. He's all excited to make camo bags and stuff. He's also got this idea that he's going to make pillows and sell them in a yard sale! I may have to bribe my neighbors to all buy one! Anyway, I think he'll have a lot of fun with it. He has big plans to make his grandpa a hunting shirt. Yikes!

This thread has some great ideas in it:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2170

Blessings,
Carrie

My son is a huge lego fan. I give him challenges to try to build things from our Bible time or History in legos. You would be amazed at the things they come up with. We had the Tower of Babel to our ceiling once. He also built some pretty cool ships. Another good source of boy type activities is Tee Daring Book for Boys. There are lots of activities there geared toward boys. And one more thing that comes to mind for boys only is the Keepers of Faith manual for boys. There are lots of things there that hit all kinds of interest. One other thing that comes to mind is The Young Man's HandyBook by Martha Greene. This one has everything from cooking to camping, building things to fixing things. He may not be able to do it all now but there is a great deal he could be doing now and the rest will come in handy later, These are all doing type books for boys. Maybe one of those will strike your fancy. I have a boy that has to keep busy or else he will decide to do things on hiss own which can be interesting sometimes. These kinds of activities are good for keeping him on track.

You got some great ideas already just wanted to add a few different ideas. Hopefully between us all you will find a few perfect things for your son.

like the others have said, legos! we do a lot of lego construction. My boys are all active in Boy/Cub Scouts, too, so we work on those things in our off time. We play games (currently yahtzee is a favorite!) do puzzles (we LOVE sudoku!) or jigsaw puzzles, watch videos.
I used to have a "quiet bag" with stuff they could do during nap time. They got big enough to balk at "nap time" so we called it "quiet time" and I encouraged them to do quiet activites, but they didn't have to sleep! The bag had things like a rubiks cube, or color book pages, or mazes, a few cars, little things that I would change or switch around every couple days so it didn't get old. We used fabric paint to name them "Jake's big boy bag" (he was only about three...now he's almost fifteen...but he said I could tell about his big boy bag! )

Legos are a hit here too! Also, castles and knights, army men, Lincoln logs. If it's nice outside, drawing a chalk racetrack on the driveway and doing bikes/scooters is fun. Indoors: audio books, computer time with educational games, color by number, latch-hook, cross-stitch, independent reading time, dominoes, Geotrax, magic trick set, Sudako, etc. My oldest used to be like your ds, and has finally learned the skill of choosing what to do with free time. Hallelujah! I pointed out to him that this was a skill to be learned - many adults aren't sure what do with their free time either - or make poor decisions about what to do. My dh told our ds that he LIVES for getting to his free time. He finishes his work as quickly as he can, so he can do the things he wants to in his free time.

I told my ds that I could pick for him each time, but that ultimately free time is a gift that each person needs to decide how best to use, so my picking for him really wouldn't let him use that gift. Sometimes, when asking him what to do, if he was acting unsure or had what I consider an "Eeyore" attitude about it, I give 3 suggestions and have him pick. If he still doesn't like those, I pick 1 thing - usually what I think he will like the least and set the timer to have him do it for at least 20 minutes. Then, I ask again what he'd like to do - he gets the picture quite quickly that it is more fun to choose himself than have me in charge of it.

Carrie and I have our dc play each Friday, and all the boys choose get to choose 1 thing to do for 20 minutes. It has been an incredible learning experience for them. One time, my middle ds picked Geotrax. Everyone took 20 minutes to set it up for him, and then when we set the timer for the 20 minute Geotrax time, he cried because he wanted to change his mind and pick "cars". We said "no", and he spent 5 minutes of the Geotrax playtime in the corner in time out. The next time, he carefully weighed his decision more. Another time, one of the dc picked to play with 1 paper moth he'd made. We had to point out how everyone could not play this, so another choice would be better. Another time, someone picked the LONG game of Risk and when the timer rang was way upset they weren't done. The next time he picked the short version of Risk and was very happy. Yet another time (in fact this past Friday), all of them first chose to pool their 20 minutes together for 100 minutes of playing knights and castles. We pointed out this was just fine with us, but they would all be playing 1 hour and 40 minutes of this one thing then. They put their heads together and one picked play outside and another picked put on a magic show, resulting in 1 hour of knights and castles, and 40 minutes for the other things.

Learning to choose what to do for free time, while considering if it is alone time, time with siblings, the amount of time you have, the weather - and so many other things, all lead dc to master the skill of "what to do with their free time". You may want to have a rotation for your ds. 30 minutes independent play in his room, 40 minutes of playtime with his sister where they each pick something to do together for 20 minutes, 30 minutes of independent play out in the house, and then maybe add some other "have-tos" like 10 min. independent reading, 15 minutes audio books, 20 minutes outdoors, etc.

It's worth the time to work on this skill - you are right to identify this! Too many dc look to their parents to be their entertainment advisors, filling their every moment for them. Don't give in to the temptation to do this - we don't want dc who are 30 yo calling us for what to do on a free Saturday!

In Christ,
Julie

Thanks ladies for all these good suggestions. Your thoughts and experiences are so helpful! I think I have some more clarity now, thanks to you.