5 AI Projects You Can Do at Home This Weekend
5 AI Projects You Can Do at Home This Weekend
Looking for something fun, creative, and genuinely educational to do with your child this weekend? You're in the right place.
These five projects use free AI tools, require zero technical experience, and are designed for families to do together. Each one teaches real AI literacy skills — prompt engineering, critical thinking, creative direction — wrapped in activities your child will actually enjoy.
Grab a laptop, clear the kitchen table, and let's build something.
Before You Start: Quick Safety Ground Rules
Take two minutes to go over these with your child before any project:
- Never type real names, addresses, phone numbers, or school names into AI tools — use nicknames or character names instead
- AI makes things up — always double-check facts it gives you
- Your child is the creator — AI is the assistant, not the author
- Keep a grown-up nearby, especially for ages 8–10
OK, let's get to the fun part.
Project 1: AI Art Gallery
Ages: 8+ · Time: 30–45 minutes · Tool: Craiyon (free, no account needed)
Your child picks a theme, creates AI artwork through careful prompting, curates their favorites, and presents a gallery exhibition to the family.
How to Do It
Pick a theme. Brainstorm together — "Underwater Cities of the Future," "Animals Running Coffee Shops," "My Dream Bedroom on Mars," or anything your child is excited about.
Generate the art. Open Craiyon.com and start writing prompts. The key is being specific:
"A friendly orange tabby cat wearing a tiny chef hat, making pancakes in a sunny kitchen, cartoon style"
Encourage your child to experiment — add colors, moods, and art styles ("watercolor," "pixel art," "cartoon"). Generate at least 6–8 images.
Curate and present. Your child picks their 5 best pieces, gives each one a creative title and a one-sentence description, and walks the family through their gallery. They're the curator — let them explain their choices and what they learned about prompting along the way.
What They're Learning
Prompt engineering, creative direction, curation, and presentation skills — plus the concept that AI needs clear human instructions to produce good results.
Project 2: Story Co-Writer
Ages: 8+ · Time: 30–45 minutes · Tool: ChatGPT (free tier) or Microsoft Copilot (free)
Your child writes a short story using AI as a brainstorming buddy — not as the author. The rule: your child makes every creative decision.
How to Do It
Start with story ingredients. Before touching any AI tool, your child decides on a main character (name, age, one fun trait), a setting (where and when), a problem (what goes wrong), and a mood (funny, spooky, adventurous).
Get starter ideas. Share those ingredients with the AI and ask for three different opening ideas. Your child picks their favorite or mixes and matches.
Write the story. Your child writes the first paragraph themselves, then continues the story in their own words. When they hit a wall, they can ask AI for ideas:
"My character just discovered the engine room is flooded. Give me 3 ideas for what she finds there."
The pattern is: write → get stuck → ask AI for options → pick one → keep writing in your own words. Aim for at least one page.
Get feedback. When done, ask AI to highlight the strongest part and suggest one improvement — without rewriting anything. Your child revises and reads the final story aloud. Applause mandatory.
What They're Learning
The difference between using AI as a tool versus a crutch. Creative writing, decision-making, and the skill of asking good questions when you need help.
Project 3: AI Quiz Master
Ages: 10+ · Time: 30–45 minutes · Tool: ChatGPT (free tier) or Microsoft Copilot (free)
Your child becomes a quiz show host — designing questions, fact-checking the AI, building a scoring system, and running a live family quiz night.
How to Do It
Choose 3–5 categories the whole family would enjoy: Animals, Space, Movies, Sports, Weird History, Food Around the World — whatever sounds fun.
Generate questions. For each category, ask:
"Create 5 multiple-choice trivia questions about [CATEGORY] for a family quiz night. Make 2 easy, 2 medium, and 1 hard. Include 4 answer choices, mark the correct answer, and add a fun fact after each."
Fact-check — this is the critical step. For each category, your child picks 2–3 questions and verifies the answers using a search engine. AI gets facts wrong! Keep track of any mistakes caught — this is excellent learning.
Set up scoring and play. Easy questions earn 1 point, medium earn 2, hard earn 3. For a dramatic finale, add a wager round: everyone bets some of their points on one final question. Your child hosts the whole event — reading questions dramatically, keeping score, and announcing the winner with fanfare.
What They're Learning
Critical thinking, fact-checking skills, event planning, and public speaking. Plus the crucial lesson that AI sounds confident even when it's wrong.
Project 4: Prompt Battle
Ages: 8+ · Time: 20–30 minutes · Tool: Craiyon (free) for images or ChatGPT (free) for text
A head-to-head family competition where everyone gets the same challenge, writes their own prompt, and the family votes on whose AI result is the best.
How to Do It
Pick a challenge. The youngest player or a designated judge announces it. Great starters:
- "Create the cutest animal doing something unexpected" (image)
- "Get AI to write the funniest knock-knock joke" (text)
- "Design your dream treehouse" (image)
- "Get AI to write a rap about doing the dishes" (text)
Write in secret. Set a 5-minute timer. Everyone writes their prompt on paper — no peeking. Children and adults play by the same rules.
Reveal one at a time. Take turns typing each prompt into the AI tool on one shared screen while everyone watches the results appear. The dramatic reveal is the best part.
Vote. Everyone votes for their favorite (no voting for yourself). The winner picks the next challenge. Play 3–5 rounds for a full game.
Share what worked. After round 1, discuss what made some prompts work better: being specific beats being vague, adding style and mood helps, and setting a scene gives AI more to work with.
What They're Learning
Prompt engineering through play. They'll naturally discover that clear, detailed communication produces better results — a skill that transfers far beyond AI.
Project 5: AI Music Video
Ages: 12+ · Time: 45–60 minutes · Tools: Suno (free tier — AI music), Craiyon (AI images), and any slideshow tool (Google Slides, Canva free, or iMovie)
The big creative project. Your child writes lyrics, generates a song, creates matching artwork, and assembles a mini music video.
How to Do It
Plan the song. Your child decides: What's it about? What's the vibe (happy, dramatic, silly, epic)? Who's the main character? Example: "A song about a cat named Captain Whiskers who dreams of going to space — upbeat and funny."
Write lyrics. Start on paper with key phrases and rough lines. Then ask AI to help structure it into a verse and chorus — keeping your child's original ideas and creative direction intact:
"I'm writing a fun, upbeat song about a cat who dreams of going to space. Here are my lines: [paste lines]. Help me turn these into a short song with one verse and one chorus. Keep my ideas — just help with structure and rhyming."
Generate the music. Go to Suno.com, switch to Custom mode, paste the lyrics, and describe the style: "Upbeat pop song, fun and energetic, catchy chorus." Suno generates two versions in about 30 seconds — pick the favorite.
Create the visuals. Using Craiyon, generate 5–8 images that tell the story of the song, one scene at a time. Keep the art style consistent across all images ("cartoon style" or "watercolor" in every prompt).
Assemble the video. Put images into a slideshow in song order, add lyrics as text on each slide. For the simplest approach, just play the Suno song while clicking through slides. For a more polished result, use Canva or iMovie to combine the audio and images.
Host a premiere. Dim the lights, make popcorn, and watch the music video together. Your child introduces their creative vision before hitting play.
What They're Learning
Multi-tool AI workflows, creative direction across mediums, lyric writing, project management, and the concept of being a "director" — guiding AI tools to execute a creative vision.
What Comes Next
If your family enjoyed these projects, imagine what your child could do with structured guidance, expert instruction, and a community of fellow young creators.
At Promptlings, we take the same philosophy behind these projects — children as creators, AI as a tool, learning by building — and turn it into a full curriculum. Live classes, small groups, and age-appropriate paths for children ages 8–18.
Join the waitlist → and be the first to know when enrollment opens.
Matt Martin is the founder of Promptlings, an AI literacy program where children learn to create with AI — responsibly, creatively, and confidently. These projects are adapted from the Promptlings family guide.