Do you have an Amazon Alexa-enabled device? Do you have children? Are those children ever bored? If your answers were “yes,” “yes,” and “yes of course all the time,” then do I have an Alexa skill for you!

It’s called Activity Book. Enable the skill in your Alexa app (or by saying, “Alexa, enable the Activity Book skill,”) and then tell your kids to say, “Alexa, open Activity Book” (or more accurately, “Alexa, tell Activity Book I’m boooooooooored.”). Alexa will then give them something to do. Examples include:

• “Why don’t you count the wrinkles in your elbow?”
• “Climb a tree, but be careful. You don’t want to break any limbs.”
• “Make up a secret handshake. After you teach it to someone, celebrate with a secret milkshake.”

The list of suggestions is long, ever-increasing, and appropriate for all ages.

This was actually the first Alexa app I wrote, back before Amazon allowed skills targeted at kids. I’m glad that they decided to support kids skills solely so that they could approve Activity Book. You humble me, Amazon!

The Activity Book code is open-source and available on GitHub.