Looking for fun, creative and inspiring ways for your family to spend time together? This list of twelve family ideas, one for each month of the year, will give everyone something to look forward to and memories of family home activities to look back on with a smile.
January
Holidays are over. The house looks bare. Everyone is heading back to work and school.
Fun family activities for this time of year might include an indoor winter campout. Decorate a room with paper snowmen and showflakes. Build a fire in the fireplace. Roast hotdogs or marshmallows, and cook popcorn. If you don’t have a fireplace, use lanterns, candles, or small lamps for lighting. Pack a picnic dinner.
Use sleeping bags, cots or air mattresses.
February
Plan a valentine treasure hunt. Cut out hand-size hearts from red construction paper. With a marker have each person write one or two lines telling something special a family member has done that demonstrated love. Do this for each of the members in the family.
Fill a basket with the valentines. Choose one person to hide them. When the hunt begins, read the valentine you find. If it isn’t written about you, leave it where you found it and keep looking. When everyone has found his valentines, read them aloud.
March
Have a kitefest. Each family member makes his or her own kite. Read a book on making kites. On the day of the kitefest, go to the park with snacks of kite-shaped sugar cookies decorated with licorice whips for tails.
Make award certificates. Consider awards for the most creative kite, the highest flyer, the first to crash, and the silliest kite.
April
Plant a family garden. If you live in northern climates, you'll have to wait until May. Everyone should choose a favorite vegetable. Work together to hoe, plant, weed and water.
May
Go on a family adventure. When the weather is warming, spring fever sets in. Do you enjoy hiking? Visiting unusual museums? Being around animals? Explore a new place together.
Keep a family journal of your adventure, telling what you did and saw. Take photos that can be put into the journal. A few years of these journals will add into a collection of memories that can be enjoyed many times.
June
It’s time to enjoy that family garden. Harvest your favorite foods together, then have a family feast. Make sure everyone tries each other’s favorite home-grown foods. (If you live further north, you’ll have to wait until July or August for this one!)
July
Organize the neighborhood for a mid-year parade. Have everyone dress up or make floats that portray a theme. For example, you might feature “Holidays Throughout the Year,” “Cultures Around the World,” “Famous People From our State,” etc. Hang up posters around nearby neighborhoods inviting others. Set up lemonade stands, bake sales, carnival-type booths. Get to know your neighbors as a family.
August
It’s the end of summer, school is about to start, and it’s hot! Time for a water party. Everyone must bring a water game, activity or food that involves water (watermelon being the favorite!). Have a water balloon fight. Bob for apples (summer is the perfect time to stick your head into a bucket or barrel of cool water). Play water tag—the one who’s “it” has a water hose. If it’s cool and wet, do it!
September
Celebrate National Grandparents' Day. Put together a video, play or scrapbook about your grandparents’ lives. Interview your parents, aunts and uncles, your grandparents and their friends. Find old photos and learn of funny, exciting or amazing events in their lives.
October
With the arrival of fall, change is all around. What was the most significant change in your life this year? Find a caterpillar and put it inside a terrarium, fish bowl or jar. Add sticks and plenty of leaves and grass. Watch the caterpillar eat and eat. As it creates its cocoon, make a chart of your own family’s changes this year.
When the caterpillar emerges from its cocoon and becomes a moth or butterfly, set it free and share with one another the changes in your own life during those months.
November
In the weeks before Thanksgiving, ask everyone to prepare a list of things for which they are thankful. For inspiration, look at photo albums, and through your journal or diary. Be creative. Read your list at the Thanksgiving meal.
December
Be a family of holiday angels. Buy gifts for a family that is less fortunate by supporting a local holiday gift drive. Volunteer at the food bank or at a local homeless shelter. Ask how you could bring a little cheer to a seniors' home in your community. If you’ve never given back to the community as a family during the holidays, you will be amazed at how great it will feel.