Frugal Indoor Fun
By Nancy Twigg- Spend an afternoon writing letters or making homemade cards to send to out-of-state relatives. Let the kids make drawings, finger paint portraits, or collages to send to Grandma and Grandpa to adorn their refrigerator.
- Help the kids make up skits or act out stories to perform for Dad when he gets home from work. Along those same lines, help the children put together a family talent show in which they sing, dance or do magic tricks. For added fun, use a camcorder to record the performances to watch later. The children will love seeing themselves on TV.
- Pull out the teapot and teacups and hold an afternoon tea party. Along with your tea, serve finger sandwiches and cookies. If your children are too young for tea, serve heated lemonade or hot chocolate.
- On a cold afternoon, spread a blanket on the den floor and have an indoor picnic. Eat the same kinds of picnic foods you would in the summer.
- Go camping indoors. Pitch a tent in the living room and let the kids pretend that they are on a camping trip. Pull out the sleeping bags and they can take naps in the tent or even sleep the whole night there. Let them invite friends over for an indoor camping sleepover.
- Get the whole family together to work a giant jigsaw puzzle together. Be sure to have plenty of popcorn on hand for snacking.
- Provide the kids with fruits, vegetables and snack foods cut in a variety of shapes and sizes. Ask the kids to use the different shapes to create their own edible artwork. The only rule is that they have to eat whatever they put on their plates. Be sure to take pictures of their creations before they eat them.
- Almost all kids enjoy playing dress-up. Gather up all the outdated clothes, gaudy jewelry, weird hats and bright makeup you can find and let the kids go for it! Be sure to take pictures.
- Pull out those board games or card games. When's the last time the family enjoyed a friendly game of Scrabble or Monopoly? Turn off the TV and enjoy some family together time as you enjoy some friendly competition.
- Speaking of cards, why not use those playing cards to build card houses? Compete to see who can build the tallest card condominium.
- Rather than renting movies from the video store, borrow videos from friends. In return, offer to lend them any videos you own. Be sure to return them promptly when you're done.
About The Author:
Nancy Twigg is the editor of Counting the Cost, a free email newsletter about simple and frugal living (www.countingthecost.com/index1.htm). For more creative money-saving ideas, visit Nancy's newest website, http://www.CreativeFrugality.com
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RE: Frugal Indoor Fun
We often make obstacle cources with pillows, blankets, chairs etc. We go through it without touching the floor. They have to jump and climb and stretch. It keeps them active and they love it.
Post by Rose Anne
RE: Frugal Indoor Fun
Those were all great ideas! My nephew often comes over, and I am always looking for ideas that are inexpensive and fun. I will definitely use the idea about making skits to show the family, too bad I don't own a video camera :(
One thing I used to love to do with my nephew was create whole cities in our living room. We used to make buildings out of shoe boxes, and cereal boxes, paint them to look more realistic, or cover milk cartons with paper, and then paint them and cut out little windows and doors.
Then once the buildings were finished we used to lay scrap paper on the ground around the buildings, and draw streets on the paper. So when it was all done, we used to take his cars and drive them all around our Town. My nephew Michael even made little bridges and lakes, and even incorporated some toy farm animals into this city. We definately had a few laughs! His friends really enjoyed this city also, they used to love to come over and add buildings, and they even had supeheroes like superman save a girl from a burning building, their imagination was really astonishing!
I think one time, this city was in my living room for about 2 weeks, my nephew was so upset when we had to take it down!
He used to spend about 2 hours a day at my home, working on this last project, and never got bored of it! This city just kept growing and growing, and growing... just like his imagination :-)
Post by sandi073
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