5 AI Activities You Can Do With Your Kids This Week

You don't need a lesson plan or a computer science degree to do AI activities with your kids. You need an AI chatbot (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, any of them), a kitchen table, and about 30 minutes. These five activities work for kids ages 5-14, and every one of them teaches a real AI skill without feeling like school.

Pick one. Try it tonight.

1. Plan a Dream Vacation

Ages: 8-14 | Time: 30-45 minutes | Skill: Prompt writing, critical evaluation

This one is a Big Thinkers favorite. Your kid picks a dream destination (anywhere in the world) and uses AI to plan the entire trip. Flights, hotels, activities, restaurants, daily schedule, budget. The whole thing.

How it works:

1. Your kid chooses a destination. Let them dream big: Tokyo, Iceland, the Amazon, wherever.
2. They write a detailed prompt telling AI about the trip: who's going, how long, what they like to do, what time of year, and what kind of trip it is (adventure, relaxation, educational).
3. AI generates an itinerary. Now the real learning starts.
4. Together, you evaluate the output. Does this schedule make sense? Are these real places? Is this budget realistic? Could we actually walk between these attractions?
5. They refine the prompt and ask follow-up questions. "Add a rainy day backup plan." "What if we only have $100 per day for food?" "What activities are good for a 6-year-old?"

Why kids love it: They end up with a complete trip plan they can show off. Some families have actually used their kid's AI-generated itinerary on a real vacation.

This is the full Trip Planner lesson at Big Thinkers, complete with parent prep notes, discussion questions, and a bonus challenge. The blog version gives you the basics to try tonight.

2. The AI Fact-Check Challenge

Ages: 8-14 | Time: 20-30 minutes | Skill: Critical thinking, fact-checking

AI is confidently wrong more often than most adults realize. This activity turns that weakness into a game.

How it works:

1. Pick a topic your kid knows something about: a favorite animal, a historical period, a sport, a video game.
2. Ask AI to write 10 "facts" about that topic.
3. Your kid's job: figure out which facts are true and which ones AI made up or got wrong.
4. They verify each fact using a second source (another search engine, a book, an encyclopedia site).
5. Keep score. How many did AI get right? How many were wrong? How many were close but not quite accurate?

3. Write a Story Together (Human + AI)

Ages: 5-14 | Time: 20-30 minutes | Skill: Creativity, prompt iteration, editing

This is collaborative storytelling where your kid and AI take turns.

How it works:

1. Your kid sets the scene. They describe the main character, the setting, and the situation. For younger kids, keep it simple: "A brave cat who lives on a pirate ship."
2. They ask AI to write the first paragraph of the story based on their setup.
3. Your kid reads what AI wrote and decides what happens next. They write the next paragraph themselves.
4. They hand it back to AI: "Continue the story from here." AI writes the next part.
5. Keep going, alternating between your kid's writing and AI's. Your kid is the editor in chief. They can accept, reject, or modify anything AI produces.

4. Design a Restaurant

Ages: 7-14 | Time: 30 minutes | Skill: Creative use of AI, prompt writing, planning

Your kid invents a restaurant from scratch, using AI to bring it to life.

How it works:

1. Your kid decides the concept. A space-themed pizza place? An underwater sushi restaurant? A breakfast spot that only serves food from the 1800s? Let their imagination go wherever it wants.
2. They prompt AI to help with each piece: the restaurant name, the menu (with descriptions and prices), the decor, the uniforms, the jingle, the Yelp review from a fictional critic.
3. They evaluate and refine everything AI produces. "That menu is too expensive for a kids' restaurant." "The descriptions are boring, make them funnier." "A space restaurant wouldn't serve garden salad, change that."

Bonus: Print out the final menu and "play restaurant" at dinner. Let your kid be the chef and present the concept to the family.

5. Build a Trivia Night

Ages: 8-14 | Time: 20-30 minutes | Skill: Prompt specificity, fact-checking, presentation

Your kid creates a full trivia quiz using AI, then hosts game night for the family.

How it works:

1. They pick 3-4 categories they're interested in (animals, geography, movies, history, sports, science, whatever they want).
2. For each category, they prompt AI to generate 5 trivia questions with multiple-choice answers. The key: they need to specify difficulty level, age-appropriateness, and format.
3. They fact-check every question and answer. Is the "correct" answer actually correct? Are the wrong answers plausible enough to be tricky?
4. They compile the quiz, assign point values, and host trivia night for the family.

Why kids love it: They end up in charge. They're running the show, and everyone else is playing their game.

The Pattern Across All Five Activities

Notice what these have in common:

• Your kid is in the driver's seat. AI is the assistant, not the authority. They're making decisions, giving direction, and evaluating results.
• There's a tangible artifact at the end. A trip plan, a fact-check scorecard, a story, a menu, a trivia game. Something they can keep, share, or show off.
• The learning is invisible. Nobody sat through a lecture. But they practiced prompting, critical thinking, iteration, and creative use of AI.
• You did it together. Every one of these is better with a parent involved, asking questions, helping evaluate, adding to the creative direction.

This is the Big Thinkers approach. Every activity in our library works this way: real project, real skills, real fun, done together. See the full library.

Pick One and Go

Don't overthink which one to start with. Grab the one that your kid would think is coolest, open an AI tool, and sit down together. That's it.

If you want a more structured version with parent prep notes, discussion guides, and extension challenges, Big Thinkers has 20+ activities ready to go. Try one free.