Toys, games and fun...

...without spending a penny.

 You might remember some of these activities from your own childhood, I know I do.

Make musical instruments.
Take a shoe box, or any other reasonably sturdy cardboard box, cup a hole in the top if needs be, and wrap a few elastic bands around it to be the strings. A cardboard tube from some kitchen roll can be stuck on the end of the box to complete the guitar look.
Make a simple shaker out of an empty plastic bottle filled with pasta or rice.
Put together a drum kit from pots, pans and wooden spoons for drum sticks.
Fold a piece of paper over a comb.
Fill glasses with varying amounts of water, and 'play' them by running a damp finger around the edge of each glass.
Make a microphone out of a loo roll tube and some scrunched up paper.

Now the weather is beginning to warm up, playing with water is starting to look like fun again. Empty margarine tubs and yogurt pots, and a washing up bowl half filled with water can entertain small children for ages. These is no need to spend money on water pistols, save rinsed out plastic squeeze bottles instead. As well as squirting water at each other (which is always fun!), you could use chalks to sketch out a target range on an outside wall.

Make dolls out of old fashioned wooden pegs, or a wooden spoon. A few felt tips to draw on the face, and a few scraps of fabric, tissue paper, or even kitchen roll are all you really need.

Homemade jigsaw puzzles. If you have an old calendar, or a picture book that you are throwing out, you could cut out a picture, and cut it out into as many shapes as you think your child can manage. If you want it to last longer, then you could stick the picture down onto thin card (maybe from a cereal box) before you cut it up.