Most kids can be entertained easily if they are learning and it doesn't have to cost you an arm and a leg to fill their time with fun things to do.

Here are two educational and entertaining things to fill your child's time:

Fall Leaves

Leaves are so much prettier in the fall. You have beautiful yellow, orange and red leaves to preserve and make scrap books of. And at the same time your child can learn all about the trees from which the leaves came.

Get a regular scrap book and go hunting with your children for leaves. If you don't have many trees in your neighborhood try one of the local parks or maybe take a short afternoon drive into a rural area.

Help them find leaves from a number of different trees. You might even add things like pine needles.

Once you have gotten back home let them preserve their leaves in wax paper and attach them to a page in their scrap book.

Then they can research the tree that the leaf came from. If you have internet access this should be pretty easy. If not, maybe make a visit to the local library where you can find some books for them on leaves and trees. Let them match pictures of leaves to their own leaves to identify the tree.

Have them write a short description about the tree underneath the leaf in the scrap book. They might even add information about what that type of tree is used to produce, such as railroad ties, kitchen cabinets, firewood, etc. Make note if the tree produces some type of berry, nut or flower. 

Fall Leaves make learning fun and can be a whole family project as well.

Pipe Cleaner Dolls

I guess most people don't have pipe cleaners on hand, so this one won't be totally free, but it won't cost you that much.

Get a few tobacco pipe cleaners and bend them into stick figures. This could be dolls, dogs, cats, squirrels and so on. Keep in mind that pipe cleaners come in different colors.

Then you can dress or decorate them with things that you probably do have around the house. Cotton balls can become hair for our doll or a head for your dog. Use beads or buttons for eyes and noses. For a fatter body you can coil a pipe cleaner around a pencil. 

Use a little ribbon for ties or bow ties. Make a cane out of a pipe cleaner for your stick person. A ball of yarn could be used to make hair for the stick people and fur for the animals.   

Give it some thought and you and your children can come up with a lot of ideas to make your stick characters delightful.