These 3 Dollar Tree Items Will Keep My Kids Busy for Hours

If you have kids you're hoping to keep entertained this summer, you may be worried about just how much you're going to have to charge on your credit cards to engage their attention and stave off boredom.

The good news is, you don't have to drain your checking account to find ways to occupy your offspring. In fact, there are many great items at Dollar Tree that keep my kids busy for hours and that may entertain your children as well.  

Here are a few of them. 

1. Block building kits 

The Dollar Tree offers Make It Blocks, which are shockingly similar to the name-brand Lego products. You can buy 8-packs in assorted colors, or you can opt for kits that allow you to construct specific things like dinosaurs or construction equipment. You can even buy little block people to live in your colorful constructed world. 

My son adores putting these kits together and can spend endless hours finding things to build with his collection. Once the trucks, dinosaurs, or other structures are put together, he also gets a big kick out of playing with them as well. The kits are well worth $1.25 for the endless entertainment they provide.  

2. Squirt guns 

Dollar Tree has a great selection of water squirters, including double and single-barrelled squirt guns. These can be filled by sticking them in a pail of water and pulling them back, which makes them a whole lot easier for toddlers to use than the more expensive squirt guns that require unscrewing a water chamber to fill. 

These squirt guns have provided more entertainment than you can imagine, especially since they are so cheap at $1.25 each. My kids obviously love filling them up and squirting each other, but they also get a kick out of "cleaning" the car tires and other things around the house with them. For a fun twist last year, we even filled them up with some colored water and made squirt gun paintings on canvas. 

If you want your kids to be busy for a long time on a hot day, pick up a few of these and fill a bucket of water and you'll be good to go. 

3. Activity books

Dollar Tree has a great selection of activity books, including some learning books geared to kids of varying ages. Some of the activity and coloring books feature well-known characters that kids adore. Other offerings include sticker books or workbooks designed to teach important concepts like reading and math.

Many of these activity books are just as fun and educational as the more expensive ones from local bookstores. And they can provide endless entertainment as my kids look through them and work on the pages. 

Each of these items is priced very affordably, and you get a lot of bang for your buck when you buy them at Dollar Tree. If you want to keep your kids occupied this summer, consider checking these items out or just making a trek down the toy aisle at your local dollar store to find other things that catch your interest. You'll be surprised by how much you discover.