Lexi Wharem is a mother and photographer based in Lake Wales, Florida. She can be found on instagram sharing pieces of her life and work as she chases her dreams of being an visual storyteller.

Now that we are home full time we have had the unique blessing of finding ourselves bored and wondering what to do with our extra time together. Oh, the opportunities to connect with each other!

I have loved seeing all the fun activity lists circulating my social feeds over the last few weeks, so I thought it would be fun to pull those ideas together and create an activity jar with my girls.

This was such an easy project to execute! I downloaded Casey’s free printable of fun activities to do at home, then I created my own list with a few more of our personal favorites. I printed both lists and grabbed a pair of scissors and an empty jar.

Cut out your activity paper strips and place them into your jar. At this point you can call it done, but if you’d like to take it up a notch, grab a glue stick and some leftover artwork that you just couldn’t bare to throw away. Cut the artwork up into strips a little bigger than your activity paper strips, then get your little helpers to glue them together.

These cardstock illustrations I had been saving from our Literati boxes worked great and I loved the color they added to our jar. You could also use your children’s original artwork, pages out of an old children’s book, or even some popsicle sticks or tongue depressors.

Once you’ve finished gluing all your activity strips together, fill up your jar and make a little label for her.

I had something a little more rigid in mind, but my girls took over and completely art directed this, and I’m so glad they did because I think it turned out so perfect. Don’t you love when you just let go and let be and it turns out better than you ever imagined?!

I was sure to keep our leftover art strips so we could add more activities to our jar as we think of them. Keep your jar out on your table where it’s visible and handy whenever someone says, “I’m bored!” Even if their first pick doesn’t inspire them, encourage them to keep picking until one does– it works every time!

Remember to have fun with this! The more your kids contribute, the better, because then they will feel even more empowered to grab it in those slower, in between moments, to inspire their hearts and minds!