Run out of money and ideas to entertain kids

[CartwheelCate]

We've seen lots of friends, been to the zoo, cinema, into London, bought art supplies, a basketball, foam swords, made cards etc.
I now have very little patience money left for the month and a 7 and 9 yr old to keep busy till Sep 2nd.
Any ideas gratefully received.

Have you got, or can you borrow, a tent? Put one up in the garden for hours of fun

Why do you need to entertain them? They are well old enough to find ways to entertain themselves. I really think learning this type of self reliance is good for kids. When I moaned about being bored as a kid my dad replied, 'only boring people are bored' and I was left to get on with it. And I did. I soon found something to do. And my parents were poor as piss so money certainly didn't come into the entertainment equation.

Park with a picnic?

Cinema at home ie sit on sofa with curtain shut and watch a film (with popcorn)?

Tent in the garden?

Games of playing catch to improve hand to eye co-ordination?

Card games?

I'm actually a great believer in letting children find their own entertainment. Otherwise they just rely on someone else all the time, and don't learn to use their own resources.

Go blackberrying
Make pies/crumbles etc with said blackberries
Take them to the library. Whilst there you can find out what's going on locally for free.
Borrow a dog and take it for a long walk/picnic.

Thanks. We have a tent and have been camping. Our garden is a shared one and not too big so can't really do that. I did consider turning one of the bedrooms into a space for the tent, but not sure I can be bothered to clear out a whole room.
I think today is going to be charity shop day - we're going to clear out unused toys etc. That'll use up a bit of time...

We are due another library visit actually, blackberrying sounds good. We've done a lot of cinema at home, I'm getting a bit sick of it!
I do tell them to entertain themselves, and generally they do quite well, I just feel like we've become very lazy over the last few days and want to do something.
If the grey clouds clear up we might go for a walk in the woods later.
Thanks for the ideas.

Junk modelling with the recycling. Just made a treasure chest with Dniece (9) that went down well.
Loom bands.
Cooking/Baking.
Read Georges Marvellous Medicine and create your own potions with food essences/colourings and cheap bubble bath.
I hear geochaching is good, but mine are too young yet for that.
Den building in the woods/park.
Bike riding.
Swimming is fairly cheap.
Sleeping bag slides down the stairs (put single mattress down stairs and slide down onto pillows).
Take them out to the park and they will run around and make friends while you MN.
Let them play out with neighbourhood children if appropriate.
Leave them to their own devices.

Can you let them have a 'yard sale' of toys before the charity shop run, so they can try and raise some money themselves?

Get them cooking with those blackberries - crumble, pie, jam ...

Is there any particular book/TV series they're into, that they could produce a show for you?

'Film-making' with a smart phone or suitably enabled camera, especially if they take time to write scripts and rehearse? There's a free stop motion app iMotion which a friend has used (but I haven't).

Take some string/baler twine to the woods and make bows and arrows to play Robin Hood.

I bought my two a pack of coloured chalk for 50p each and let them loose on backyard. They played for hours

Thanks for those ideas, much appreciated!
No more sodding loom bands though. They end up going up the vacuum cleaner most of the time anyway!

Pinterest is your friend.
Rainy day activities is a good search one
Or I just put the DC ages in/ key stage at school and activities.
Baking? We did our own bake off recently complete with videoing bits and blind testing and instead of the photo at the front we drew each other-that took more time you see!
Then we drew the cake design like on the programme.
I think I got a bit too into it but the kids loved it!
I guess the only works if they like bake off

I find that inviting their friends for the day is very cheap entertainment, or arrange picnic/meet up with friends at local park?