Activities for children

Being responsible for a child means being in charge not only of their health and their education but also their entertainment. It's very easy to stick the kids in front of the TV or DVD player and I will own up to relying on this medium heavily to free up some time, but kids also need regular external stimulus.
There are any number of options to choose from and in my estimation a child should have two or three regular activities per week to look forward to. Currently for us, this is:

• Gymnastics on a Monday
• Swimming on a Saturday

and in the past we have done Tennis and plenty of trips out. some I have considered for the future are learning an instrument, horse riding (if we can afford the horse supplies), and sports like soccer or netball.