10 Simple Creative Activities for Homeschool: No Planning Necessary | Homeschooling

Simple, creative activities for homeschool do exist! Whether you are in a pinch, it’s a rainy day, you’re sick, or you simply need a creative activity for your child, these 10 simple creative activities will inspire you and help you get started!

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Hi, I’m Priscilla!

Before I was a homesteading, homeschooling mom I was a professional musician and music teacher. I carried over my teaching experience into homeschooling my children, but I learned it was much different teaching your own children. And, when I started homesteading, I started with NO experience. It was something I never imagined doing. I had to do a lot of researching and learning each season. So, I know how hard it is to start homeschooling and homesteading with no experience! 

How we can help you?

Now, I’ve homeschooled for 11 years and have 6 children of homeschool age with 1 more in waiting. And, while I do have a background and several years of experience in education, I do not think one can actually be an expert on homeschooling! Why? Because we are educating our own children, and that’s a different dynamic than any classroom or studio lesson. Also, all of our children are different, and we all choose to homeschool in different ways, with different styles, and different curriculums. No one can be an expert at all things homeschooling, in my opinion.

BUT, I do believe that experienced homeschool moms and new homeschool moms alike have wisdom and experiences to share with one another that can help encourage and inspire each other onward. Homeschooling your children is no easy feat. It is a full-time, energy-demanding, brain-challenging, emotion-driving, patience-testing job. 

And, I’m always looking for ways to make things more time efficient and enjoyable by making them simpler to do, delightful, and sustainable. When things are simpler, they are more sustainable in our already full lives. Therefore, we want to help others do the same, no matter what their skill set is and no matter where they live. Building up all things home will allow us to sustain our families no matter what the future holds!

We are still learning on this adventure every day. But, we knew if we could do it, others could do it too! So, we started this blog to encourage other families to start homesteading and homeschooling, with Christ at the center, for a more abundant life no matter where they live; NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY! We offer simple solutions, resources, and encouragement for your Christ-centered homesteading, homeschooling journey.

Why are simple creative activities for homeschool helpful?

Simple, creative activities for homeschool are helpful for many reasons. One reason is that creativity is a skill or ability that is vital in our world. Creativity brings things into existence, creates beauty, solves problems, and promotes expression. Education is a great facilitator of creativity, so when we are responsible for our own homeschools, we can promote as much or little creativity as we’d like. I, however, am a big believer in facilitating as much creativity as I can. I am a creative and musician myself and my children got the same genes!

Our curriculum, The Good and Beautiful, does a great job adding creativity to their daily work through arts, history, geography, poetry, and more. And, maybe you use a curriculum that promotes creativity as well! However, I still find that there are times that I’m in a pinch for a creative activity that is simple and requires no planning. Whether it is to fill time, I’m working with another child, younger ones need structure, I’m sick, we’re exhausted, or they are bursting to do something creative, I have found 10 simple creative activities for homeschool days. And, these 10 ideas are just basic categories of ideas that can be used over and over again with different topics or subjects. You’ll see what I mean as we go.

Why choose simple creative activities for homeschool that require no planning?

No one wants more planning.

It may sound like it requires a lot of planning, but it doesn’t. Who needs more planning? That’s not my way of homeschooling. I do NOT do detailed planning for anything. I use curriculums that go in order of lessons or have the lesson right in each day. When we study subjects like History, Science, Health, and more, I use books and just read them in order or make it a family study. We choose which activities and experiments to do, and one of our History curriculums has everything we need for activities. Our Language Arts curriculum includes subjects like poetry, art, geography, and more. But, it is very simple to include other creative activities in our days, and I’ll show you how. These same ideas are featured in my post 12 Tips for a Nourishing Fall Routine for Christian Homeschool Families.

Promotes fun and creativity without much effort.

We can make homeschool days more lively and fun by adding a creative activity to each day, or once a week. Whatever works with your homeschool weekly flow. That could look like an art class, a simple craft, a drawing prompt, a writing exercise, poetry prompts, story prompts, an artisan skill, or baking. Or, even grabbing a book on music composers at the library and having active listening time to listen to a piece by the composer of the day. Yes, we did that last one which is why it was so detailed. You can even grab a book on artists, ballerinas, poetry, etc. It can be incorporated at any point in the homeschool day, but if the day is extra slow or tired, a creative activity before harder subjects like Math can really help!

Simple creative activities for homeschool are sustainable.

The key to being able to facilitate simple creative activities for homeschool in a pinch with no planning is to make sure that you already have plenty of art supplies on hand. Things like construction paper, glue, scissors, markers, crayons, white drawing paper, pencils, and washable paint. Emphasis on the washable. You can also get fancier and have things like craft eyeballs, popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, string, beads, and other supplies. These ideas today are sticking with simpler items because we are all about simple here. Why simple? Because simple means sustainable!

10 Simple Creative Activities for Homeschool: No Planning Necessary:

1. A free art class tutorial on YouTube.

This is super easy. This is one of the easiest, no-planning creative activity there is. There is no work involved. You only need paper, pencils, and maybe some coloring supplies. Free art classes and step-by-step drawing tutorials are numerous and easy to find on YouTube. I pull out this idea when I’m sick, have a migraine, or the kids just want to!

You can make this easier by subscribing to a channel that you can use repeatedly. We subscribe to Art for Kids Hub. We don’t “do” or believe in everything on there, but we stick to the things we do! They have an incredibly large library of art class and step-by-step drawing tutorials. And, they have a paid platform here for no ads. This is our most recommended, most used, simple creative activity for homeschool we use!

2. A simple craft from an art book you have on hand.

The key to this is to make sure you have a collection of craft books on hand. We have quite a few art books that we have collected over the years with unused crafts and/or instructions for crafts. Some of our books are meant for one-time crafts with what we need in the book. Other craft books we have include instructions for crafts that can be done over and over. You can find craft books at the library, garage sales, the store, amazon, and more. Look for them cheap! Sometimes one of my kids will just go to a craft book and pick something they want to do. This is one of our favorite, simple creative activities for homeschool.

3. A drawing prompt.

Drawing prompts are a super simple way to promote creativity in a child. You simply come up with an idea or concept (that is detailed or not) and let your child draw it! It is good drawing practice. Drawing prompts are described by yourartpath.com as “a helpful idea or a guideline meant to inspire creators and give them the next art project goal to tackle. Drawing inspiration, new ideas, drawing random things, prompts that challenge artists to practice and create art they might’ve not come up with on their own…”. A drawing prompt is mostly an idea that acts as a starting point to a creative drawing or project. Therefore, almost anything really can be a drawing prompt!

A drawing prompt can be as simple as “draw a cat”, as silly as “draw a cat walking on a laundry line”, or as detailed as “draw a black Siamese cat with blue eyes and a muscular build resting in a brown woven bed”. The possibilities for drawing prompts are endless! And guess what? We have 50+ free drawing prompts printable pages in our free printable library! We also have 200+ here for only $2.99 right now! What’s different about ours? they are pure and family-friendly. We try to honor God in all we do. So, our drawing prompts do not contain evil, magic, mythical creatures, inappropriate or disrespectful behavior, etc. The drawing prompt set up we also use is less expensive and uses less paper by making a better use of paper. Read this post here on our 50 Free Drawing Prompts for Kids and get the printable today!

4. A painting prompt.

I won’t sit on this one too much. This one is just like a drawing prompt, but using paints! A paint prompt gives the child an opportunity to be even more creative with colors and paints. It is also practicing a creative skill. You can even use our drawing prompts above as paint prompts. For paint prompts, you can use washable paints, pastels, watercolors, oil paints, or whatever type of paint you have available. I personally choose to keep super washable paint on hand. Painting is definitely one of the most fun simple creative activities for homeschool days.

5. A writing prompt.

A writing prompt can be for a sentence, a paragraph, an essay, a poem, or a story. It is very versatile. Writing prompts are great practice for writing, vocabulary, grammar, and more. I could have made these individual ideas on this list, but I thought they were so similar that I could just group them. You can search and bookmark ideas ahead of time because there are free ideas everywhere. You can also just come up with them on the spot like I often do. The only time I don’t do them on the spot is if I am sick. We choose other activities. We will actually be coming out with a post soon on some pure and creative sentence prompts that can also be used for paragraphs, essays, poems, or stories. Writing prompts are a simple creative activity for homeschool.

6. Bake something.

If you have a from scratch household and prepped pantry and kitchen, then this will be easy and require no planning as well. Bake cookies, muffins, granola, bread, whatever. Get as simple or complicated as you want, but when my kids come to me wanting to bake I keep in mind what they already know how to do unless I have the time to teach them something new at the time. We make special time to learn new recipes, and I often bring along my kids to bake and cook. But, there are times they just want to bake! Baking is also educational in that it uses math and is a life skill in itself. So, baking can be one of the most fun and simple creative activities for homeschool.

7. Have active music listening time.

This is a super easy way for non-musicians and musicians alike to add music into their homeschool. Pick a composer, look them up on your music app or YouTube, and facilitate active listening. You can tell the children the name of the composer, the name of the piece, and the music era that it was written in. But, active listening gives children a chance to say what they hear. Active listening helps children with instrument recognition, that may need to first be led by you, as well as understanding how instruments work together to make different sounds and emotions. Ask different questions!

You can also get a free library book to help you with this. The library book can be on a certain composer, multiple composers, or a certain music era. Books can be especially helpful for you if you are not a musician or just don’t know where to start! Here are a few ideas of recognizable pieces just to get you started:

• Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring by Bach
• Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G major by Bach
• Eine kleine Nachtmusik by Mozart
• Symphony No. 41 in C Major by Mozart
• Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony: Symphony No. 5 in C minor
• Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven
• The Entertainer by Scott Joplin
• Various Movie themes by John Williams
• Various Movie themes by Hans Zimmer
• Pieces from the Four Seasons by Vivaldi
• Pieces by Chopin, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Brahms..

Active music listening does not have to require any planning. Just pick a composer, a piece, and listen!

8. Sew, Crochet, Knit, or make something simple from string!

This is most helpful if any of your children already know how to sew, crochet, knit, or do other handicrafts. Children can make reusable napkins, washcloths, coasters, scarves, blankets, and other easy beginner items. However, for kids who don’t know these skills, they can be given yarn or string and create something! They can use beads and make a bracelet or necklace, they can braid a bracelet (or learn to braid if they are young), learn to tie (like shoes), or learn to make knots. Children can even get creative and make a picture using string pieces on construction paper. The possibilities are endless! What can you or your children come up with to do with string or yarn?

9. Practice origami.

Origami pretty much just requires paper. If you have a book with origami instructions or access to free content, this is a simple activity to do. YouTube has many free tutorials (like Art for Kids Hub) on different levels of origami. Origami does require a certain level of focus, but it is quick and simple to facilitate.

I have found in my experience with such a range of ages in our homeschool that it is best for us to put an easy or beginner level tutorial on for the younger kids (or everyone), and then a more advanced one for the older kids. Younger kids tend to get quite frustrated at the difficulty of origami if it is above their level or do not have help. So, appropriate level tutorials help make practicing origami one of the easiest simple creative activities for homeschool that requires no planning.

10. Make a thank you card or other card for someone.

Does someone you know have a birthday coming up? Is there someone in your child’s life that would be uplifted by a thank you card? Making a card for someone is not only a simple creative activity, but it also serves someone else with kindness. If you give your child a task of thinking of someone to make a card for, whether it is to say thank you or bring a smile to their face, you may be surprised and blessed by what they choose to do.

I have been so blessed by watching my kids bless people over the years. Facilitating this while they are young helped them grow into thoughtful kids looking to bless others in this way. My second youngest makes the most pictures for me ever with words like “I love you mom” that always bring a smile to my day and joy to my heart. She grew up with activities like this, but has her own big heart that is always making pictures for others. She even made a picture recently for a family member that got married. This is one of the kindest simple creative activities for homeschool to facilitate.

Conclusion: 10 Simple Creative Activities for Homeschool

We have talked about why simple creative activities for homeschool are helpful, why they are even better when they require no planning, and how they benefit your children in homeschool. Whether you are in a pinch, it’s a rainy day, you’re sick, or you simply need a creative activity for your child, these 10 simple creative activities for homeschool will inspire you and help you get started!

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