If you need to get your shopping done quickly, divide your list among yourself and your children and see who can pick up the items on their list and be back at the check-out line first, and the winner would win a prize. Of course taking your children to the grocery store with you is never a good idea unless they understand that you will be buying only the items on your list. Making your own games, toys and crafts at home can be fun, educational, and frugal. Making your own games, toys, and crafts can sound complicated and time consuming but when done in combination with other tasks, it can actually keep your kids happy and occupied while you complete other duties. Make your cooking time, fun time for you and your kids.
Older kids can actually help with the cooking itself.
Rolling out the dough, cutting it with a pastry cutter, and filling the raviolis is something the whole family can do together. Use your sale flyers for more than tracking the best prices. Have your children look through the sale flyers with you as you look for bargains. Younger children can pick out pictures as you go along and cut them out for use in making a game to play later. For example, in one of your sale flyers there could be a picture of an apple.