Fun Group Activities

Gardening has always been a hit in our home! The kids have always enjoyed picking seeds or bulbs and planting them, then caring for them until they grew. It really is a fun time for the whole family with beautiful rewards in the end.

We also as a family have embarked on many activities that turned out to be more enjoyable than I had thought they would be. As a homeschooling mom a lot of them were actually meant for education purposes but turned into much more than that. We built a rat paradise for our rescued babies, yes they were rats. Here are some picks to see what we are talking about;

The Grotto

We also have shared in baking an apple pie, gingerbread cookies (which didn't turn out so yummy) and homemade pizza (which Morgan refused to eat!) I found a cheap place you could order live butterfly larvae and we raised those as well as hatched some pray mantis (caution here, there were over 500 that successfully hatched)! All these crazy insects were released in the wild when they were old enough but the joy of raising them and watching them grow was so much fun. The whole family was wrapped up in the projects, (they were only intended for the younger kids science, but this was irresistible for all of us). I will be adding photos of those activities also in the near future so that everyone can see what I am talking about. I will also gladly share where we got the supplies for the insects for any family that wants to give it a try -

We're finally starting to do family activities more often now that Aiden can be stretched and doesn't HAVE to have a nap. We've had a lot of fun this fall, I thought I'd share some of the fun things we did:

Apple picking--Aiden had a blast picking apples off of the trees, and I think he finally made the connection that apples grow on trees (just like the tomatoes that grow in our garden).

Pumpkin Patch-Anything that involves tractors...fun times! In fact, we couldn't do anything else until we'd taken a tractor ride out to the pumpkin patch. He could care less about the pumpkin--it's just the tractor that's fun Grin.

Saturday Football-My hubby is a huge college football fan, and I grew up in a Washington Redskins family. On game days Aiden wears his team jersey and helps us cheer on our teams.

Planting flower bulbs for the spring. We haven't done it yet, but I have a bunch of bulbs that came in the mail and we're just waiting for a free minute to plant them. Aiden has already decided which ones are "his"...He helped us plant bulbs last year as well and then loved looking at all of them this year when they popped up.

Those are our fun fall activities...but we're always looking for more ideas Cheesy

~Elsie

That game sounds like a lot of fun. I'm sure it's one of those things you have to actually just start doing and it will all fall into place.

The movie slumber party also sounds great! We do have family movie nights, but I never thought about turning it into a slumber party. We'll have to give that a try!

We had one other really fun neighborhood activity this summer. I wrote a little essay and won an Edy's Ice Cream neighborhood block party. Edy's gave away a ton of these this summer and you just had to write about why your neighborhood deserved such a party. On the agreed-upon weekend, they delivered 12 cartons of ice cream (like the ones you get in the market, 1.5 gallon ones), 4 boxes of ice cream bars and all the supplies needed to host a party--scoops, spoons, cups, napkins, wipes, signs, nametags, etc. etc.

I invited a ton of people and we ended up with about 15 families with a huge group of kids at the party. We met at the local school, where the kids played wiffle ball, kickball, played on the playground and ate tons of ice cream! It was so much fun. It even got written up in our little town newspaper--which the kids also got a huge kick out of.

I just love these simple activities. It goes to show you don't need to spend a ton of money and have all sorts of fancy gadgets for the kids to have fun together.

Cheryl

Hi Cheryl.

I have a really great group activity to suggest. Last month my family and I went camping with a whole bunch of other families and every night there were multiple campfires all over the campground. But one night a woman brought everyone together to teach us a game. And it definitely was the biggest hit of the whole camping trip.

The game was called Signs. What you do is you have everyone sit in a circle. (You can be in chairs or on the floor, either way; it doesn't matter) At first everyone has to pick a "sign". This seems difficult but it is really simple. For your sign could be anywhere from a simple scratch on your arm to twirling your hair, or perhaps tipping your hat. It does not matter what your "sign" is as long as each person has their own. (Also, you don't want your sign to be one that makes noise!!) After everyone has picked a sign one person has to volunteer to be in the center first. They stand up in the middle of the circle and what they do is spin around for 10 seconds. They must be covering their eyes. No peeking, here! (Also, they should count down aloud) Now, while this person is spinning and counting down the people in the circle are passing around their "sign". Someone has to start the passing. So what they do is they first do their sign. For example, my sign would be scratching my arm. I would first scratch my arm and then that would say that I am "it" and in order to not be it anymore, I would have to pass my sign. So let's say I wanted to pass it to someone else in the circle whose sign was tipping his hat. I would do my sign and then do his sign. And once he accepts the sign, he becomes it. He accepts it by doing his sign. And he would pass "it" along to others around the circle the exact same way. You keep this going.. passing and accepting the sign the whole game. Now, the catch is.. the person in the middle after the 10 seconds gets to open their eyes. And they try and pick who is "it" (that person being the one who has accepted the sign.. and is holding it. For you don't have to pass it on as soon as you get it) Obviously, if the person in the middle is looking at you, you can't pass the sign because they will see that you have it and pick you. When the person in the middle finally guesses the right person then they get to sit down. And the person they guessed gets to stand in the middle and do the same. However, this time the person that was last in the middle gets to start the passing of the "sign".

This game was absolutely amazing. It brings so much laughter throughout the whole thing and it lasts for hours. Also, this game is great when there are many people, so it is great for a neighborhood gathering like you have brought up. As a bonus, this game is not only for kids. It is perfect for all ages. While we were playing we had everywhere from 5 yrs (with help for the new player) all the way up to 50 years old! And each person enjoyed it just as much. It may seem really confusing but as the game goes on it becomes second nature and flows really smoothly. Really it is a great game that brings everyone together. There is constant laughter and it will definitely make memories that will last forever. Trust me.. This is one of those games that you MUST try, cause I can guarantee that after just one time playing everyone will be dieing to play it again. I know we all were.

~Danielle

This sounds like such fun. We live in busy SoCal (Southern California) and I was thrilled when I moved to a neighborhood of home owners that cared about the quality of their neighbors Grin

We do create our own family movie night on occasion. This used to occur weekly until our living room tv stopped working, which is fixed now!! On this evening we bring out our sleeping bags and push the couches out of the way. Mom pics the movie (to avoid argument) and we spread out like a teen slumber party. We make popcorn from kernels (or eat dry cereal when the kernels are gone) and sip on hot tea, coa coa, or water and enjoy the show. What makes this night so special is that it doesn't begin until our regular bedtime and that means everyone gets to stay up! Grin

When the movie is over we all crash, yes mom too, on the living room floor and share one big family slumber. On those really brave nights we will even stay up through two movies and sleep in late! This is a real hit in our house.

Mikki Hogan
Publisher of UniqueParenting.com

Hi, Cheryl! That sounds like a lot of fun! My family had a similar outdoor get-together last Friday night. I'll post about it in another thread, and maybe you'll want to try it.

I've also got some other ideas that I'll try to post soon!

It's good to "meet" you, by the way!