So the kids are out of school until after the new year, and it already feels like an eternity.

You’re stressed; they’re bored. It’s too soon to break out the presents to keep them occupied for all of 10 minutes before the batteries drain down.

What’s a frazzled parent to do?

There are always free or low-cost events, like a trip to Key Biscayne for a picnic. A day trip to Florida City for milkshakes, a free petting zoo and the mini water park at Robert Is Here. Tossing the ball at Coral Reef Park in Palmetto Bay. The mountain bike trails at Markham Park in West Broward or Oleta River State Park in North Miami.

Or consider shipping the kids off to a winter mini-camp. Thanks to South Florida’s agreeable weather, area parks offer programs where kids can learn about the environment. Arts groups and museums also offer activities, including acting classes.

Here’s a look at some of this year’s activities during the holiday break, which ends Jan. 3.

A Pristine Play

The Holiday Mini-Camp at The PlayGround Theatre in Miami Shores is a one-week theater camp, an adventure in a fantasy world where children create characters and play plots entirely on their own through instruction in acting, music and movement. Here, 6-year-olds become witches, 10-year-olds become trees and preteens become archaeologists to travel back in time.

“They need to step outside of whatever TV shows and games they love and create totally original characters,” said Suzana Berger, lead teaching artist at the winter camp. Imagination “is a skill we use throughout our lives.”

They also have to create a 15-minute-long original play for the end-of-camp showcase.

“For some kids, standing in front of an audience and acting so that they are heard, that’s the challenge,” Berger said.

To get children’s imaginations working, teachers organize activities where campers sit in a circle and pass around an object. Each child has to think of a new and original way to use this object. For instance, a scarf is never a scarf. It becomes a dog leash, a doctor’s mask, an umbrella or a tie.

•  The Second Session of the Holiday Mini-Camp will be held 9  a.m.-4  p.m. from Monday to Dec. 30 at The PlayGround Theatre, 9806 NE Second Ave., Miami Shores. Cost: $200 per week. Call 305-751-9550, ext.  260.

Absorption in the arts

At this camp, kids become characters from Cats, create fashion that would make Vera Wang jealous, and learn pliés, pas de chats and pirouettes.

New York? Nah. This is the Kuumba Winter Arts Academy at the African Heritage Cultural Arts Center. The camp offers children and teens a rigorous program in the arts that encompasses learning the roots of Kwanzaa, improvisation theater, watercolor and acrylic painting, musical education, fashion design, modeling, piano playing, drumming, singing, and dancing.

“It gives them a taste of the arts and a good Afro-centric perspective of the arts,” said Marshall Davis Sr., manager of the African Heritage Cultural Arts Center near Brownsville. “They get quite a bit for the time they are being here.”

At the six-classes-a-day program, students have a taste of all the arts. As the rhythmic sounds of African drumming resonate in one class, students strut on the catwalk during a modeling class. Still others read Langston Hughes poetry or sing Kwanzaa celebration songs.