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5 Ideas for a Great Family Fun Night

February 11, 2014 by Anna

This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

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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.

5 Ideas for a Great Family Fun Night

Here are 5 different ideas for great family fun nights.

Popcorn & Movie1. 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 or another streaming channel. 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.

Board Game2. Game Night. Our kids LOVE board 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.

 

Bowling3. 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.

 

 

Nature Walk4. 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. If your kids like painting rocks, getting them to search for smooth stones is an awesome activity for a nature walk.

 

 

baseball5. 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!

 

 

 

 About the Book:

Antelope in the Living Room

New York Times bestselling author Melanie Shankle comes through again with her hilarious memoir of married life. Read The Antelope in the Living Room!

 

Melanie reminds you of the joy that comes when couples learn to laugh together. Welcome to the real story of two people sharing one life.

Order a copy of Melanie’s book today.

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.

 

 

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About Anna

I'm the owner of FoodandDIY.com. I love to cook, create DIY projects, and shoot photos of both! I'd love for you to click over to my site!

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48 Comments

  1. Thomas Murphy says

    February 25, 2014 at 10:10 pm

    Great idea’s! I love game night.

    Reply
  2. Winter Harris says

    February 24, 2014 at 1:58 pm

    This is are great ideas!!

    Reply
  3. susie king says

    February 24, 2014 at 10:47 am

    Great ideas, we love popcorn and movie night.

    Reply
  4. Barbara Platt says

    February 24, 2014 at 4:18 am

    love popcorn and movie night

    Reply
  5. Helga says

    February 22, 2014 at 10:35 pm

    A great list! I like the old fashioned ways of having fun with your family.

    Reply
  6. Soozle says

    February 21, 2014 at 6:26 am

    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!

    Reply
  7. Darlene Schuller says

    February 20, 2014 at 8:33 am

    With as cold and ugly as this winter has been, this is a great post!

    Reply
  8. T Alexander says

    February 19, 2014 at 6:37 pm

    always looking for good ideas for family night – thanks for sharing

    Reply
  9. Kim Tanti says

    February 19, 2014 at 1:57 pm

    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.

    Reply
  10. MCGmandy says

    February 19, 2014 at 1:37 pm

    as a foster parent, loved holiday carnivals, flee markets, book clubs, etc

    Reply
  11. jenna says

    February 19, 2014 at 11:06 am

    GREAT Ideas for a Family to get together and have so quality time hav2 fun!

    Reply
  12. FrancesP says

    February 19, 2014 at 10:53 am

    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!

    Reply
  13. Natasha W says

    February 19, 2014 at 9:52 am

    These all sound great. Movie night is already something we do but the rest could definitely be added into the mix.

    Reply
  14. JENNIFER HART says

    February 19, 2014 at 9:35 am

    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.

    Reply
  15. Phil says

    February 19, 2014 at 9:25 am

    Game night is a perfect event for our family to spend quality time together.

    Reply
  16. thomas rusinak says

    February 19, 2014 at 8:46 am

    board games are always fun

    Reply
  17. Karla T says

    February 18, 2014 at 9:14 am

    The book sounds sweet and these are great ideas for gaining family closeness

    Reply
  18. Anita L says

    February 18, 2014 at 8:02 am

    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.

    Reply
  19. Kamea King says

    February 17, 2014 at 9:05 pm

    Can’t wait to try these once my daughter gets older

    Reply
  20. Maegan Gaudreau says

    February 17, 2014 at 12:05 pm

    I miss family game nights 🙁 They are the best and I encourage anyone who doesn’t do them to start!

    Reply
  21. Sara rai says

    February 17, 2014 at 1:38 am

    Aww we should go bowling, but have nightmares from the last time. My arms were killing for days lol.

    Reply
  22. Aliya D says

    February 17, 2014 at 12:18 am

    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.

    Reply
  23. Dana says

    February 16, 2014 at 11:25 pm

    love all of these ideas. Lately we’ve been playing a lot of the game LIFE, charades, and storymatic-the kids love them.

    Reply
  24. Aura says

    February 16, 2014 at 9:37 pm

    my kids love game night in our house

    Reply
  25. vickie couturier says

    February 16, 2014 at 5:35 pm

    love these,,going to jot these down

    Reply
  26. Zoe says

    February 16, 2014 at 12:05 pm

    Oh my goodness I love the game Sorry!

    Reply
  27. Mary W says

    February 16, 2014 at 11:32 am

    I had forgotten how much fun it is to go to a local sports event. This is a good reminder list.

    Reply
  28. Christine says

    February 16, 2014 at 9:37 am

    I love this! Game nights are the best!

    Reply
  29. Janice Cooper says

    February 16, 2014 at 9:03 am

    We love doing these. Especially game night! Always a fun time with laughter and communication.

    Reply
  30. danielle says

    February 15, 2014 at 8:25 pm

    Love game nights with my family!

    Reply
  31. Birdiebee says

    February 15, 2014 at 4:19 pm

    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!

    Reply
  32. Sonya Morris says

    February 15, 2014 at 3:46 pm

    Popcorn & Movie Night happens to be one of our favorites especially when we are in the mountains.

    Reply
  33. Debbie Welchert says

    February 15, 2014 at 12:44 pm

    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.

    Reply
  34. Trish F says

    February 14, 2014 at 9:00 pm

    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.

    Reply
  35. Susan P. says

    February 13, 2014 at 8:50 pm

    We have always had movie nights, game nights with cards and/or board games and nature walks for family fun.

    Reply
  36. Mimi says

    February 13, 2014 at 6:29 pm

    With all of these snow days…we NEED ideas for family fun night. We’ve been doing a lot of movies and popcorn! lol

    Reply
  37. Jodi says

    February 13, 2014 at 1:20 pm

    I love having popcorn/movies night at our house on Sundays!

    Reply
  38. Bonnie Way says

    February 13, 2014 at 1:09 pm

    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.

    Reply
  39. Pam says

    February 13, 2014 at 11:24 am

    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!

    Reply
  40. Marya says

    February 12, 2014 at 7:27 pm

    My favorite idea is getting out of the house and into nature!

    Reply
  41. Cheryl Free says

    February 12, 2014 at 5:49 pm

    My favorite idea is the popcorn and movie night.

    Reply
  42. craig gilcrest says

    February 12, 2014 at 3:49 pm

    i like popcorn

    Reply
  43. Justine says

    February 12, 2014 at 11:12 am

    Thanks for the great ideas! We do a few of these. It is always good to have new ideas.

    Reply
  44. Joni says

    February 12, 2014 at 10:59 am

    We love doing all of these. I forgot about free bowling last summer. I definitely won’t this year! 🙂

    Reply
  45. LindaStewart says

    February 12, 2014 at 9:35 am

    All great ideas. We like doing something fun as a family and have found that a family game night is what we enjoy most.

    Reply
  46. Randalyn says

    February 12, 2014 at 8:05 am

    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.

    Reply
  47. tanya says

    February 11, 2014 at 1:35 pm

    My son is finally old enough to take bowling. Its such a great activity for the whole family and know body gets bored.

    Reply
  48. Lisa-The Domestic Life Stylist says

    February 11, 2014 at 1:11 pm

    These are great ideas. I use to love going to the movies. Getting the snacks at the theater was always special.

    Reply

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