99 Fun Paper Activities for Kids

Simple Activities to Entertain Your Kids

There are approximately 80 days of summer vacation. In case you were wondering, that is 1,920 hours. If you have young kids, you might be counting the minutes, so I’ll just do it for you…that’s 115,200 minutes to fill. Even with a summer camp or beach trip, you still need plenty of simple, easy time-fillers, so today I’m giving you the ultimate list of fun paper activities for kids. Keep your kids entertained this summer with something you already have…PAPER!

Set Up an Activity Binder

You probably have stacks of copy paper, construction paper, maybe even fancy scrapbook paper. With some suggestions, and some printables, your kids can spend hours occupied and entertained with a stack of paper. Besides the obvious drawing and coloring, you can send them on scavenger hunts, make a paper city, weave a paper purse, or make the eternally popular cootie-catchers. I’ve rounded up the ultimate list of fun paper activities for kids at home this summer.

So grab a 3-ring binder, put your printer to work, and make a go-to spot for your kids to find fun and creative activities that require little more than a pencil or box of crayons!

Free Printable Reference Sheet

I’ve got a free printable cheat sheet of fun paper activities for kids you can download for reference.

Fun Paper Activities Category List

It’s a LONG list, so if you’re interested in specific activities, use these category links to go straight to what you want. But it’s worth it to scroll through them all…you’ll get loads of ideas to entertain your kids at home this summer!

• Printable Coloring Pages
• Printable Activity Pages
• Paper Folding & Play Activities
• Paper Cutting Activities
• Puzzles and Games on Paper
• Creative Lettering Activities
• Oversized Fun Paper Activities
• Websites with Fun Paper Activities for Kids
• YouTube Channels for Drawing Tutorials
• YouTube Channels for Other Fun Paper Activities

Hello Summer Activity Pack

Grab a printable summer activity pack that includes journal prompts, weekly themes like Top Ten Tuesday, or Around the World Wednesday, fun facts, and activity ideas. You can choose from three different color schemes in my shop.
Hello Summer Activity Pack

99 Fun Paper Activities for Kids

This list of fun paper activities should keep them entertained all summer long, or at least fill a few of those 115,200 minutes headed your way! The activities listed are ever so slightly oriented toward “girly” activities and printables, as I have three girls. However, there’s plenty here for boys to love, too!

Printable Coloring Pages

Let’s start with the basics. On a list of fun paper activities for kids, I have to include coloring. You can Google free coloring pages and get thousands of options, but here are some resources that offer a variety of pages all in one spot, plus a few of my favorites.

1. Color by number: Education.com has more than 2500 color by number printables

2. Super Coloring: This site has a lot of color by number printables along with paper crafts, printable paper masks, printable games and puzzles, and more.

3. Coloring.ws: Kids coloring pages organized by subject

4. Coloring 4 Kids: Variety of simple pages organized by subject

5. Doodle Art Alley: Nice abstract, word art, and scripture coloring pages

6. Just Color: Adult and kids coloring pages organized by theme

7. Scripture & hymn coloring pages from Our Handcrafted Life

8. Printable monogram coloring pages from My Printable Home

9. Printable bookmarks to color from Smiling Colors

Printable Activity Pages

10. “I Spy” Printables from Paper Trail Design

11. Summer Bingo Printable from 5 Minutes for Mom

12. Printable Mazes from Krazydad

13. Printable Mazes from Mazes to Print

14. Worksheets: GreatSchools.org: If you want to add a little learning to your summer fun!

15. Connect the Dots (Dot-to-Dot) Printables from Connect the Dots for Kids

16. Connect the Dots (Dot-to-Dot) Printables from Big Activities

17. Printable 4th of July Placemat from Printables4Mom

18. Summer Fun Watermelon Placemat from DIY Party Mom

19. Printable Summer Lego Challenge Ideas from Play Party Plan

20. Fashion Figure Templates (Croquis) from Threads Magazine for the kid who loves to sketch clothing designs

21. Road Trip Bingo Game from Happiness is Homemade

22. Hidden Pictures Printables from All Kids Network

23. Summer Bucket List Bingo Cards from My Joy in Chaos

24. Printable comic book templates from Picklebums

Summer Bucket List Printables

These three printables feature simple summer bucket list activities like “eat ice cream” or “build a sandcastle.” If you’re looking for a cute bucket list to check off with your kids, try one of these.

25. Summer Bucket List Printable from Mrs. Bishop

26. Summer Bucket List Printable from Love Bakes Good Cakes

27. Summer Bucket List Printable from Old Salt Farm

Paper Folding & Play Activities

28. Paper Cities from Made by Joel: My kids are going to LOVE these! Printable, foldable, cuttable, and above all else…playable!!

29. Paper castle matchbox printable from Le Dada de l’Enfant Terrible: This site is not in English, but the printable can is self-explanatory and is supremely adorable.

30. Matchbox house from Homemade City

31. Paper airplane templates from Fold’n Fly

32. Paper boats from Origami Fun: You’ll find lots of origami printables and templates here in varying degrees of difficulty.

33. Paper train from Love to Know

34. Paper flowers from Easy Peasy and Fun

35. Origami tulips from Easy Peasy and Fun

36. Printable flower folding templates from First Palette

37. Tissue paper flower printable from Mess for Less

38. Origami Yoda from Origami Yoda

39. Quilling: Teach Kids Art has excellent tips, directions, and examples.

40. Quilled Tree Craft from Ginger Casa

41. Printable shark cootie catcher from Easy Peasy and Fun

42. Woodland animal corner bookmarks from It’s Always Autumn

43. Fruit slice corner bookmarks from Frugal Mom Eh?

44. Surprise ferocious beings from Craftwhack

45. DIY Paper Spinner from Krokotak

Paper Cutting Activities

46. Paper weaving rocket craft from Homeschool Preschool

47. Woven paper bag from Laughing Kids Learn

48. 3D princess paper dolls from Red Ted Art

49. Printable constallation luminary from Red Ted Art

50. Flower basket weaving printable from Red Ted Art

51. Easy Printable Paper Houses from Moms & Crafters

52. Gift tags printable templates from Jones Design Company: Your kids can make a stash of gift tags in July to get you ready for Christmas!

53. Printable summer photo booth props from One Colorful Day: This site has dozens of adorable paper craft projects.

54. Folded mini booklet from a piece of paper: Freebie from Teachers Pay Teachers

55. Paper chains from Picklebums

56. Paper pop-up book from Hobbies on a Budget

Puzzles & Games on Paper

57. 10 free printable scavenger hunts from Must Have Mom

58. Printable treasure hunt clue cards from Wondermom Wannabe: Print and hide these clues, with a sweet treasure waiting for your kids at the end. You’ll get the BEST.MOM.EVER. award!

59. Spy Decoder Printable from Clay Maze: You can download the regular alphabet version, or a more complicated one with symbols.

60. Mad Libs style printables from Education.com

61. Dots and Squares printable from Today’s Parent: Players take turns drawing lines to connect dots and compete to form the most squares.

62. Sudoku printables from Puzzles to Print: As its name suggests, this site has plenty of other puzzles you can print for your kids to try in addition to Sudoku.

63. Crossword Puzzle printables from Word Game World

64. Summer Word Search printable from Crayons and Cravings: I love this because of the cute summer theme!

65. Jotto Word Game Printable or 5 Letter Word Printable (same game) from Taz and Belly: Two players each choose a 5-letter word and take turns guessing letters to try and figure out the other player’s word. Read complete directions HERE. Once you figure it out, it’s easy to play anywhere with just pencil and paper.

66. Summertime Scattergories from The Crafting Chicks

67. Spirograph: You can buy it HERE, or try this DIY version from Pink Stripey Socks

68. Boggle: I included this one even though technically you need the game, along with pencil and paper. If you don’t have the physical game, you can go to boggle.online and use the game board on the screen as a reference for writing down your words.

Creative Lettering Activities

69. Hand lettering worksheet from Printable Crush

70. Creative alphabet lettering challenge: Download my printable Alphabet Lettering template with 26 boxes to use for drawing the alphabet. Your kids can create alphabet pictures like the example from Art with Mrs. Nguyen, or draw creatively patterned letters like the one from Artfully Afflicted. Encourage your kids to get creative with their ABC’s.

Oversized Fun Paper Activities

71. Use a big roll of paper, have kids lay down and draw around them. They can fill in clothing and features to complete a self-portrait, or create any character they wish.

72. Spray paint a colorful mural (example at Playground Parkbench) using watered down tempera paint in spray bottles.

73. Draw an imaginary world: draw some roads, buildings, and scenery, then add cars, animals or toy people for play all day.

74. Oversized portrait with hands and feet tracing from Oodles of Art: My kids had a blast with this project a few years ago, and I think they’re probably ready to do it again.

75. Draw or paint a mural: Stretch a roll of paper across a sheet of plywood and let them create a mural. Some suggestions might be in order: mountain landscape, field of flowers, graffiti type word art, cityscape. Have your kids draw an outline first in pencil before filling in with paint or markers.

Websites with Fun Paper Activities for Kids

76. One Colorful Day: There are so many fun printable paper activities to choose from here, I couldn’t choose just one. Some of my favorites are the hedgehog, origami monkeys, rainbow craft, and printable animal puppets.

77. Red Ted Art: Some great paper craft printables here are the printable constellation luminary, flower basket weaving printable.

78. Fun Family Crafts: Lots of paper craft activities, alongside many other craft projects for kids.

79. First Palette: Printable templates for crowns, glasses, party hats, and much more!

YouTube Channels for Drawing Tutorials

80. Art for Kids Hub: Wildly popular drawing tutorials

81. Draw Kids Draw: Cartoon characters, Minecraft, simple objects

81. Draw So Cute: This is not my personal favorite (not in love with all those big eyes staring at me) but my kids love these.

83. Drawing Geek: Simple animals and objects

84. Graham Shaw’s TEDx: Why People Believe They Can’t Draw: You may need to skip through a tiny bit of talking if you have little ones, but the step-by-step cartoon drawings are fantastic and your kids will love doing them!

85. Jony ABC: Scenery, objects

86. Lunch Doodles with Mo Willems: The author of the Elephant and Piggie and Pigeon books has a series of doodle drawings your kids will love.

87. Muffalo Potato: Movie and comic characters, animals, holiday characters

YouTube Drawing Channels For Older Kids

88. Art and Sketch: Oil pastel drawing

89. Circle Line Art School: Lots of buildings, cities

90. Doodles by Sarah: Daily doodle challenges, word doodles, themed doodles

91. How to Draw Easy Scenery: Just as it sounds!

92. Jon Harris: Cool spiral and geometric drawing

93. Let’s Draw: Many tutorials for turning words into art

94. Linescapes: Drawing basics, creative challenges, landscape drawing

95. Pinkoro: Word art, optical illusion art

YouTube Channels for Other Fun Paper Activities

These YouTube channels have non-paper crafting ideas as well, but with a huge variety of fun paper activities for kids, I’m including them here!

96. 123 Easy Paper Crafts for Kids: Paper toys, cubes, flowers, so much fun stuff!

97. Babble Dabble Do: This channel goes way beyond paper, but some of my favorite paper videos are the doodle cubes, DIY scratch art, and flextangles.

98. Easy Kids Crafts: Endless options for paper crafting.

99. Red Ted Art: There are a whole lot of paper projects included here alongside other arts and crafts.

Grab a Binder and Start Printing

Whew! That’s a lot of paper. Even as I try to wrap this up, I’m thinking of DIY flipbook animation and graph paper art and printable yoga workouts for kids. There’s just no end to fun with paper!

Find some favorites that you think your kids will enjoy and get a binder full of printables ready for them to play and craft with all summer long.

Find more printable activities for kids in my shop!

Included in My Hello Summer Activity Pack

If you have 7-12 year-old girls, check out the Hello Summer Activity Pack in my shop.

• Hello Summer binder cover page
• Daily Reminders List
• Daily/Weekly Chore Chart
• Printable Summer Lists to Make:
  < Summer Wish List
  < Summer Goal List
  < Books I Want to Read
  < Movies I Want to Watch
  < Books I Read
  < Things I Did
  < Top Ten List
• 6 Weeks of Monday-Friday Journal Prompts (Saturday/Sunday unprompted writing space)
• 6 Weeks of themed fun facts focusing on amazing women, along with activity ideas for each day
  Themes include 2 weeks of each:
  < Movie Monday, Tasty Tuesday, Around the World Wednesday, Thrifty Thursday, Fun Fact Friday
  < Maker Monday, Top Tips Tuesday, Wacky Wednesday, Three Things Thursday, Funny Friday
  < Math Monday, Top Ten Tuesday, Writer’s Workshop Wednesday, Thankful Thursday, Famous Failure Friday

Plus…

• Templates to go along with many activities:
  < Family Newspaper Printable Template
  < Jotto Game Printable Game Sheet
  < Squiggle Art
  < Printable Scavenger Hunt
• Weekly inspirational quotes (print extra copies to frame and display)
• Weekly Scripture verse (suitable for framing and display also)

Visit my homeschool resources page for monthly unit study ideas, projects, and homeschool planning help!

Visit my Etsy shop for checklists, planning templates, and student projects

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Fun Paper Activities for Kids