Free and Low-cost Family Fun Ideas

Today's family has limited time to do things together. Often, they also have limited funds as well. Fostering a sense of family togetherness is important for both the parents as well as the children. Parents may feel frustrated, thinking that they must spend a lot of money to create a quality experience with their children. This is not true. Family fun times can be very low cost, or even free.

The Great Outdoors

Nature provides many fun things that a family can do and experience together. At a local park, there is often playground equipment, sports fields, and wide open spaces appropriate for flying kites, runny races, or playing tag.

Exploring wilderness can also be highly entertaining. Go on a hike or backpacking trip. It's easy to have fun while learning in the great outdoors. Identify plants and animals you see, collect fallen leaves to make collages, pretend to be explorers, or hunt frogs in a brook.

Parks often have nature centers to explore as well.

The Living Room or Den

On rainy days and on cool evenings, it is great to get together as a family in the living room. Of course, watching a DVD movie that was borrowed from the library is always a choice. There are also hundreds of different board games that are fun for all ages.

Crafts can be fun to do as a family as well. Get out a bunch of old magazines, some scissors, and glue and make collages. For the more mature members of the family, recreate Greco-Roman mosaics in snips of colored paper. Small children love to create with all sorts of things: beads, paper, feathers, leaves, string... Be a kid again and see what you come up with.

The Kitchen

A family can do many interesting things in the kitchen. Most are low cost, since you will have to buy ingredients or supplies. Cooking or baking is a great way to spend time as a family. Make a whole batch of cookies from scratch, or decorate a cake for dessert.

You can also make homemade clay or play dough from simple kitchen ingredients. Have fun creating statues and vases. You can also string cereal and pasta into jewelry, string dried fruit and cereal to hang outside for birds, or create peanut butter and seed pinecones for them as well.

The Library

Every town and city has a public library that is free, or extremely low cost, for the citizens. Not only can you borrow books, videos and DVD movies, computer programs, music, and more, they often have classes, shows, and exhibitions. Children's sing-a-longs, story times, and puppet plays are also popular library happenings.

There are many fun and low cost ways for a family to spend time together. With a bit of creativity and, most importantly, the willingness to try, families can create wonderful memories and experiences. Quality time does not have to be expensive. Children, no matter how many trips, toys, or activities they have, would rather just spend time with their parents any day.