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Anna Hettick, Managing Editor, shares 5 ideas for a Great Family Fun Night. This is the second post in a series inspired and sponsored by the new memoir from New York Times bestselling, author Melanie Shankle, “The Antelope in the Living Room“.
Making dates for Family Fun Nights can be just as important as Making Time for Mom & Dad. This can let the whole family escape from the everyday chores, homework, dinner routine. In our house, we love to keep Friday night open for fun family activities. Some nights it can be as simple as watching a movie on Netflix and eating popcorn, and some nights can be as elaborate as dinner out and a fun local event.
Here are 5 different ideas for great family fun nights.
1. Popcorn & Movie Night. This is the one we pick the most, especially during the colder months. Typically I fix an extra kid friendly meal such as chicken nuggets and French fries, pizza, homemade tacos, or sometimes it’s as simple as sandwiches and chips. Then we will either pick a movie from Netflix, rent one from Redbox, or if I remember to request one in enough time we’ll pick one up at the local library. Occasionally we will take the kids to the movies if there’s a special one playing like Frozen or The Lego Movie. We always have a “movie snack” after dinner or just before the movie starts and then we have popcorn during the movie.
2. Game Night. Our kids LOVE board & card games. Go Fish and Hedbanz is our favorites. Others that we like are Sorry!, Connect Four, Candy Land, Hullabaloo, and Guess Who. Our kids also love to play Hid-And-Seek. Their dad is pretty darn sneaky and is very good at “hiding” in plain sight! During the warmer months we will play Tag & Glo-Stick Tag outside. Game night always ensues lots of smiles and laughs.
3. Bowling Day/Night. My kids love to go to the bowling alley, they are always so excited and bowl so fast that they are finished bowling way before they are ready to leave. During the Summer lots of bowling alleys have FREE bowling for kids up to a certain age, 6th grade is our local cut off.
4. Nature Walk/Picnic. We live about 2 minutes from one lake and about 15 minutes from another. The kids love to explore, feed the ducks, watch for fish and turtles out in the water. They love to pack their own picnics, which usually consist of every snack food we might have at the time!
5. Local Sports Event. We have a Minor League Baseball team 30 minutes from us. This classic American passtime is one of our favorite things to do during baseball season. Baseball, sunshine, hot dogs. I could use some of that right now!
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Disclosure: This is the second post in a series inspired and sponsored by the new memoir from New York Times bestselling, author Melanie Shankle, “The Antelope in the Living Room“.
Written by Anna Hettick, 5 Minutes for Mom Managing Editor.
Thomas Murphy says
Great idea’s! I love game night.
Winter Harris says
This is are great ideas!!
susie king says
Great ideas, we love popcorn and movie night.
Barbara Platt says
love popcorn and movie night
Helga says
A great list! I like the old fashioned ways of having fun with your family.
Soozle says
Great ideas! There are so many fun (and inexpensive/free) ways to bond as a family.. with it being such a cold winter, these are great ideas to pass the time indoors!
Darlene Schuller says
With as cold and ugly as this winter has been, this is a great post!
T Alexander says
always looking for good ideas for family night – thanks for sharing
Kim Tanti says
I love family fun night even if it is just a walk after dinner. Your children like to talk a lot and you learn a lot.
MCGmandy says
as a foster parent, loved holiday carnivals, flee markets, book clubs, etc
jenna says
GREAT Ideas for a Family to get together and have so quality time hav2 fun!
FrancesP says
Games night is my absolute fave, although going for a walk & picnic is definitely another favorite. It is truly very important to spend quality bonding time with family!
Natasha W says
These all sound great. Movie night is already something we do but the rest could definitely be added into the mix.
JENNIFER HART says
I have tried several of these and they always work out great. another option we like to add is to invite other family members over or they invite us for dinner, especially older relatives.
Phil says
Game night is a perfect event for our family to spend quality time together.
thomas rusinak says
board games are always fun
Karla T says
The book sounds sweet and these are great ideas for gaining family closeness
Anita L says
These are all really wonderful ideas. I think it’s very important to do things as a family, especially if you have children at home.
Kamea King says
Can’t wait to try these once my daughter gets older
Maegan Gaudreau says
I miss family game nights 🙁 They are the best and I encourage anyone who doesn’t do them to start!
Sara rai says
Aww we should go bowling, but have nightmares from the last time. My arms were killing for days lol.
Aliya D says
Family Game Night has always been my favourite; you can get goofy, talk and learn about the indepth workings of your family. Thanks for the recommendations.
Dana says
love all of these ideas. Lately we’ve been playing a lot of the game LIFE, charades, and storymatic-the kids love them.
Aura says
my kids love game night in our house
vickie couturier says
love these,,going to jot these down
Zoe says
Oh my goodness I love the game Sorry!
Mary W says
I had forgotten how much fun it is to go to a local sports event. This is a good reminder list.
Christine says
I love this! Game nights are the best!
Janice Cooper says
We love doing these. Especially game night! Always a fun time with laughter and communication.
danielle says
Love game nights with my family!
Birdiebee says
These are some great ideas. Here in the northwest during the winter, family night is spent at a local indoor skating rink or at the local indoor swimming pool. Thanks for the great ideas!
Sonya Morris says
Popcorn & Movie Night happens to be one of our favorites especially when we are in the mountains.
Debbie Welchert says
I love family movie night at our house. We like playing cards too. We have a bike trail and park right across the street so that works out really well for the kids too.
Trish F says
When my kids were little we played a lot of games, but never had a regular night and sporting events were frequent because they both played sports. All of these ideas are great, makes me wish we did more nature walks and hikes and picnics.
Susan P. says
We have always had movie nights, game nights with cards and/or board games and nature walks for family fun.
Mimi says
With all of these snow days…we NEED ideas for family fun night. We’ve been doing a lot of movies and popcorn! lol
Jodi says
I love having popcorn/movies night at our house on Sundays!
Bonnie Way says
These are great ideas! We love doing games or walks together. I like the idea of bowling but there aren’t many bowling alleys around anymore, it seems like. Guess we gotta go more often so they don’t all close down! 🙂 Thanks for sharing.
Pam says
Great ideas – we try to have a family night at least once a week- it usually involves board games, but if the weather is nice we’ll go play mini golf or head to the park!
Marya says
My favorite idea is getting out of the house and into nature!
Cheryl Free says
My favorite idea is the popcorn and movie night.
craig gilcrest says
i like popcorn
Justine says
Thanks for the great ideas! We do a few of these. It is always good to have new ideas.
Joni says
We love doing all of these. I forgot about free bowling last summer. I definitely won’t this year! 🙂
LindaStewart says
All great ideas. We like doing something fun as a family and have found that a family game night is what we enjoy most.
Randalyn says
Sporting events are nice because the kids get to experience a new atmosphere. Hockey is becoming a bigger deal around here and a lot of fun to watch.
tanya says
My son is finally old enough to take bowling. Its such a great activity for the whole family and know body gets bored.
Lisa-The Domestic Life Stylist says
These are great ideas. I use to love going to the movies. Getting the snacks at the theater was always special.