Is your teen complaining of having nothing to do? Give them this list and challenge them to complete it!

A Haiku poem should have seventeen syllables, in three lines of five, seven, and five. This is not as easy as it sounds!

A teen writing a
haiku could be a challenge
but you can do it!

Here are the rules:

• Create a new menu and practice it
• It must include starter, main + dessert
• It must be tried out on your family
• It must be of a high standard i.e. empty plates at the end.

Check our family-friendly Recipes section for some foodie inspiration. And if you need some advice, here’s how to cook dinner in ten simple steps.

Invite some pals around and hold an open-mic night. You can do one theme e.g. poetry, comedy, music or a variety.

Tip: keep performances to a minimum/specified time slot, so each performer gets enough time.

Dig up some pairs of jeans you never wear and turn them into something new. Ideas: denim skirt, shorts, oven mitt, book cover, tote bag.

More ideas on Allfreesewing.com.

Encourage your teen to visit or get in touch older family members and interview them, they could their phone to video some of the conversations. Things to ask about:

• What was it like when you were a teenager?
• Were your parents strict?
• Who was your favourite family member?
• What did you eat?
• What did you do to amuse yourselves?

Get our best content direct to your inbox! You’ll receive quick and easy recipes, fun ideas to entertain the kids, parenting tips, great competitions, as well as offers from brands we trust.

Did you give up on music lessons when you were younger? Or fancied learning an instrument but never got round to it? Teach yourself to play a song from start to finish on a new instrument.

Get rid of unwanted unworn clothes and get some new duds in the process. Get your friends to bring round their clothes, put them in a big pile, have a big grab and score some new clothes for nothing.

And there’s no commission due to Depop either!

All you need is a pack of cards and plenty of M&Ms for chips. And a straight face of course.

Here’s a good summary of the basic rules of poker to get you started.

Pick a night forecasted to be warm, clear and rain free and grab a sleeping bag, blanket and pillow and head out for a night outdoors.

Are you familiar with the constellations? See how many you can find in the night sky. Download a free app like Star Walk or Night Sky to find constellations as you scan the night sky.

Here’s how to create a stop motion video. Take inspiration from these incredible Stop Motion Videos.

Rules for your song:

• It must be tuneful
• It must be lyrical
• Witty is good.

Either write your own or do a karaoke style number. Now record yourself singing it and file away for viewing in 10 years’ time.

This is a good one if you’re planning to do some babysitting, to be able to tell prospective parents that you know first aid.

Make a Dream Destinations Board if you’re on Pinterest. Or take a while looking around Lonelyplanet.com and create the best ever round the world itinerary.

• Where to go
• How to get there
• What to do
• Where to stay
• Where to eat

Make a treat in the microwave, e.g. cookies or brownies or cake in a mug.

Here are 20 microwave dessert ideas.

Make a Mexican night with burritos or fajitas, guacamole and tortilla chips, and some virgin margaritas to wash it all down.

Practice your homemade pizza. Making your own dough is easy to master and a great life skill. Here’s our own super easy dough recipe:

Ingredients

• 450g strong white bread flour or Tipo 00 flour (the Italian pizza or pasta flour)
• 500 ml warm water
• 2x7g sachets of dried yeast
• 2 tblsp olive oil
• pinch of salt

Method

1. Put flour in a large mixing bowl.  Stir yeast into warm water in a jug. Make a well in the middle of the flour and add salt, olive oil then stir in yeast mixture until a dough forms (add a little more water or flour depending on if your dough is too sticky or too dry). Knead for up to 10 minutes. Place back in the bowl and cover with tea towel and leave for at least 1 hour to rise.
2. Divide into 4 balls and knead them a little to make them smooth.
3. Roll out flat to about 1 cm thick and place on your oiled pizza sheet or tray.
4. Now go wild with the topping combinations.

Check out the art or latest exhibition at a local gallery or museum. Ask at reception if they have any teen programmes, e.g. helping with tours or learning how to curate.

Go on a walking tour in your town or city. You never do this when you live somewhere, so act like a tourist for a day and take in a tour. It’ll amaze you the stories you’ll find out and the hidden things you never noticed around the place.

Borrow or rent a fishing rod and head off to a local stream, river or lake for the day.

Maybe you like animals. Or are happy helping homeless people. You can do this through a local volunteer centre or at a local event or for a local charity, they always need people to help. (PS good for the resume/CV too!)

Get down and mucky on the farm or at the stables and have a bit of fun. You never know you might love driving tractors and feeding cows and horses. If nothing else, it will give you a good appreciation of what a tough life farming is.

Walk a dog. If it’s your own, you probably haven’t done this for a while without complaining so this time watch your dog carefully and see how they sniff and stop and enjoy the time with them.

If you don’t have a dog, offer to walk a neighbour or family friend’s dog. You never know, it could turn into a side hustle.

If you’re not familiar with Geocaching, it is a modern-day treasure hunt that uses a Global Positioning System (GPS) to guide you to the treasure. People all over the world have hidden trinkets and objects at various locations, which you can go out and find with your smartphone.

There’s a good chance that there is a geocache hidden somewhere that you pass everyday and you never even realised it. When you find the treasure – that’s the cache, you trade items in it, so swap an object of your own that has similar or higher value, before returning the cache to its original hiding place.

Check out nearby golf clubs. Many have good coaching deals for teens and some clubs let members collect stray golf balls as well.

Or head to nearest Mini Golf or Crazy Golf and see how many holes in one you can get.

If you’ve never listened to a podcast, the whole world of audio awaits you.

From true crime to history to comedy to sport, there’s a podcast for every taste. A good place to start is to ask for recommendations.

Check out our list of 10 of the Coolest Classic Books for Teens. From older classics to more modern ones, all of them are thought provoking and inspiring.

Then see if you can find any adaptations of your book to watch afterwards to compare notes.

Make your own face masks + slice up some cucumber, it’s home spa time.

Get out the manicure set and those unused foot spas for more home spa treatments: mani/pedi and foot soak.

What would your dream house be like? What would it look like outside and in? Where would you situate it? Money’s no object in this exercise in dreaming so fire away with indoor cinemas and swimming pools and separate motorbike garages. Now file it away for when you have made your first million.

Sed tincidunt tempor leo, vitae consequat lorem ornare ultricies. Nullam fringilla ultricies pharetra. Aliquam suscipit leo vel est fringilla laoreet in eget lorem. Proin non rhoncus nulla. Pellentesque porta nunc pretium, scelerisque justo a, tincidunt tellus. Mauris eu dictum mi. Vivamus non finibus ligula. Sed tincidunt tempor leo, vitae consequat lorem ornare ultricies. Nullam fringilla ultricies pharetra. Aliquam suscipit leo vel est fringilla laoreet in eget lorem. Proin non rhoncus nulla. Pellentesque porta nunc pretium, scelerisque justo a, tincidunt tellus. Mauris eu dictum mi. Vivamus non finibus ligula.

We challenge you to skip 10 in a row on a river/lake/at the sea. And if you can manage 10 in a row, we challenge you to do 15 in a row and tell us (honestly) below on our comments if you managed this amazing feat.

Head on out to a nearby pavement and spend some time with chalks creating a mural.

Here are some ideas for sidewalk art to inspire you.

Get up in time for sunrise and record it on video or as a series of Time Lapse Photos (see next idea).

Or head out at sunset, if you are anywhere near water and see if you can capture it reflected on the sea, lake or river.

Do a time lapse photo project, e.g. over the space of a week or fortnight take photos of a plant growing or a street scene.

Or get up early and capture the sunrise by taking a picture a minute as the sun rises.

Have you ever played Dixit, King of Tokyo or Small World? There’s a world of new board games to try out. Just round up some friends and invite them over for a game session.

Take your smartphone out for a walk and take a series of photos on a theme. For example, you could try this Alphabet Photography Hunt or take photos of objects of a particular colour.

Then print the best of your pictures and frame them for your room.

Find a safe place to set up a portable bbq and have a simple cookout with sausages and smore’s. Or ask your parents to borrow the family BBQ (under supervision) and perfect some grilling skills.

Build a marshmallow catapult, trust us, it’s the best fun to work out how to construct and try out.

And you get to eat it afterwards!

Start with 3 things and teach yourself to juggle, if you don’t have juggling balls then beanbags or even oranges are good starters. Once you get good with 3 items, start adding in 1 more item. Can you get to 5 items?

Have you done any of these things before?

• Zorbing
• Ziplining
• Climbing Wall
• Kayaking
• High Obstacle Course

Find your nearest adventure centre and challenge yourself to do something new that you’ve never tried before.

Try a new colour of paint if your parents are cool with you changing your room.

If not, try a furniture rearrange, a good clear out (put your unwanted hoodies etc on Depop and grab some extra cash for yourself). Ask if there are small furnishings you can take from elsewhere in the house to freshen your room up.

New posters, artwork or photos are all inexpensive ways to change up your walls.

Decide on your movie’s genre, broad story and characters and make a storyboard. You could film your neighbourhood, a day in your life or get friends to be characters in a fictional film.

Short movies are fun to make as they don’t take too much planning or stop motion animation if you don’t want to ask real people to be in your film.

If you’ve never tried Footgolf, then now’s your chance!

Footgolf is played on a golf course, a football is kicked into a series of large holes, the object being to complete the course using the fewest possible shots. Google your nearest Footgolf location and head out for some kicking fun.

Head to a water park or swimming pool with a flume and ride the waters!

There are lots of free online tools for helping you to create cartoons or comic strips.

Once you’ve perfected your style, why not make a graphic novel?

What theme will your party have? Here are some ideas:

• Tropical/Hawaiian
• Grease
• Mamma Mia
• Stranger Things / 80s
• Glow in the Dark

Now pick the music, food, decorations and don’t forget the invites, use a free online design tool like Canva to make your matchy-matchy themed invites.

Have you ever been surfing, body boarding or kayaking? Even if you don’t live by the beach, if there’s a river or lake nearby you may find a company that does water sport training.

Get out your bike or mountain bike and ask one of your parents nicely to drop you off at a cycling trail for a half day or day’s cycling (take plenty of water and lunch with you).

Or if cycling isn’t your bag, then head off with a group of friends for the day (bring a picnic and drinks) for a long, long walk, e.g at least 3 hours long. (Ask your parents to pick you up at the end when you’ll be nice and tired).

Touch typing is a fantastic skill to learn, not only will it stand you in good stead for using your own laptop but you will get access to lots of temp jobs if you can type fast and with few mistakes. It also means you’ll get school and college projects done much quicker too.

Pick a new language, such as Arabic or Mandarin and master 10 phrases well.

Before you dismiss this one as just something old people too, knitting is a very mindful skill and helpful to take you off your phone for a while. Plus you get to keep the thing you make or make someone happy with a hand-knitted gift.

Starting with a scarf is the easiest option as it’s just a long rectangle. Once you have mastered a scarf you can move onto cowls and hats and even tackle socks and gloves if you really want to challenge yourself.