The upcoming weekend is the perfect time to spend more time with family and bring the changes into your usual Saturday or Sunday routine. Here is the list of fun family activities to do with your partner and kids — pick one or try them all to enjoy the most entertaining weekend of the season.
1. Live Escape Game
These live games have become pretty popular recently and there is a reason for it. Escape rooms like Escape Hour are the perfect way to get the adventurous spirit without taking any risks and making any physical efforts. All you need is the good mood, the power of your brain and a couple of partners to help you crack all the riddles and escape the quest successfully.
If you’ve never been in the escape quest before, here are some things for you to know. In the beginning of the game, you are being locked in the room full of riddles, puzzles, and brain-teasers. Your aim is to solve them all and find a way out before the time runs out. But don’t be afraid, there is always someone to give you a hint if you are stuck.
The best thing about escape rooms is that they are perfectly decorated to fit a special theme so you can travel in time, visit the wild jungles or take a mission into outer spaces with a group of friends or family for just one hour. The prices are usually quite reasonable especially if you split them up with friends.
2. Movie Marathon
We bet there are a lot of movies you’ve been longing to watch but never had enough time. So why don’t spend a weekend cuddling in bed with the whole family, eating snacks and watching favorite or just-released movies and cartoons? It feels especially great in winter when it’s so cold outside and you have nothing to do but stay home and enjoy the interesting family activities.
If you have enough time, you can organize a movie-themed family party. For example, dress up into the stormtroopers and watch the whole Star Wars series or make plenty of butterbeer and immerse into the Harry Potter world. Themed snacks and room decorations will complete the atmosphere and grant your kids a perfect weekend. If this sounds too difficult and time-consuming, just buy a bunch of food, get under the blanket and start your movie marathon.
3. Cooking together
If we are talking about food, family cooking is one of the funniest activities to do with kids. The first and the easiest option is to cook something together at home. It can be a light Sunday breakfast with pancakes and fruit salad or a large Saturday dinner with baked potato, meat and maybe even a cake. Delegate the part of cooking tasks to your kids and you will be impressed how happy the are to cut and mix things.
The second option is to take a cooking class together. Today there are plenty of places that offer family cooking classes where you can make a fancy dinner or a dessert together and, of course, eat it when you are done. During a class, the cook will teach you all the details so you can repeat it later at home and impress your family with the new dish.
4. Family photoshoot
We all have a ton of family pictures in our smartphones but never actually watch and print them. Making a professional (or a-kind-of-professional) photo session will brighten up the weekend and fill the photobook with new pictures. You can hire a professional photographer for a couple of hours or just ask a friend with a camera to have a walk with you and take photos of you enjoying the day. Here are some fun photoshoot ideas for the family:
- Get some retro mood and dress like a family from the last century. You can rent the costumes or make them up of something you have at home;
- Ask photographer to catch you during your morning routine to have the perfectly live pictures of your family waking up, having breakfast and spending weekend morning together;
- Rent a studio and make a couple of fancy portraits in beautiful decorations. They will be cool to re-watch in a couple of years.
By the way, these family photos will make a perfect Christmas gift for the friends and grandparents — just print them out get framed.
5. Hiking
There are definitely some interesting places in or outside the city where you’ve never been before together. Hiking is one of those family group activities that don’t require spending any money — just your time and a little bit of energy. Find a nice location (it can be the city park or a forest outside the city or anything you like) and make a small family trip closer to nature. Of course, the best part of hiking activities is eating together after a long walk so don’t forget to take sandwiches, sweets and a flask of hot tea or coffee.
6. Roller-skating
Well, finally we have an activity that does require some physical action and won’t let you just sit and relax. Roller-skating is so cool to try both for children and grown-ups and is a perfect choice if you want to do a little bit of sports and spend a day with the family at the same time. You can either rent rollers and skate in the park or go to the special rollerdrome to do some tricks or take a roller-skating lesson.
This will probably not work for you if there are infants in the family but the older kids will enjoy playing catch-up or racing each other. But don’t forget to wear helmet and knee protection as fall-offs are inevitable.
7. Taking care of your house
Many families spend at least one weekend day cleaning the house. We suggest turning your cleaning day into one of the family activity ideas and get some fun while ordering your household. For example, you can announce the competition and give small prizes to those family members who clean their room first or spend a couple of hours crafting home decorations and hanging them all around the house. If you need to reorganize your closet, turn it into the fashion show, try on the clothes and decide together what you need to keep and what to give away.
It doesn’t matter which one of family activities you choose — the most important thing is to spend time together, enjoy your weekend and keep your good mood up. You can also make your own list of family activities (one more cool thing to do together, by the way) and try to cross out at least one point a week. And have a nice weekend!
I am Lech Dvorak a Manager at Escape Hour. I am trying to combine my skills and professional background to bring higher-level perspective into my work. Currently I am sharing the my experience and vision on the hot topics from the world of recreation.