Lights Out Fun: Activities to Do in the Dark

The other night shortly after dinner the power went out. Having two young children I immediately felt stressed. I have a hard enough time trying to entertain the two when the lights are on.

Instead of admitting defeat I came up with a few activities that as a family we could all enjoy in the dark. Believe it or not the night ran smoothly. By the time the lights came back on I felt stress free and closer to my boys. Maybe I should turn out the lights every once in awhile.

Glow In The Dark Necklaces

We had these saved from our most recent trip to the fair. After a few days the boys lost interest in them, but when the lights went out they once again became a favorite toy. Together we placed them on the stuffed animals and danced them around the room. We came up with a clever game of ring toss. Each on of us took turns tossing the glow in the dark necklaces around the paper towel holder. The dogs were included in the fun when my oldest son thought it would be funny to place one on each of their tails.

Flashlight Fun

It is amazing how much fun you can have with a flashlight. We had a good old fashioned hand puppet show. Everyone took turns holding flashlights and displaying their favorite animal on the wall. Next we decided to make up our own dance with the flashlight. One person would move the flashlight across the floor in a pattern and another one had to dance the moves. The dogs even joined in by chasing the lights. My favorite of the evening was flashlight hide and seek. We split into teams of two; one team would count while the other team would hide. Then the counters would turn on their flashlights and search for the hiders that were now in the dark. Giggles always gave away the whereabouts of the hiders.

What's In Your Hand

In the dark it is a lot of fun to play what is in your hand. Each of us would chose a common household item. We sat in a circle and when it was our turn we would pass our item around, making sure that we had turned off our flashlights first. Everyone would make a guess as to what the item was and at the end we all revealed our items.

Stories

Who says you cannot have story time before bed when the power goes out. With little ones I found it to be good to keep the stories about superheroes and princes as opposed to monsters. This was such a fun part of the evening. Kids have such a great imagination. One person would start off the story and the next person would continue it.

On a daily basis we are all consumed with all these technology devices that are supposed to make our life simpler. When the lights first went out I was extremely stressed and panicked. By the end of the evening though I had realized a very important lesson. All you need is your family. It really does not matter where you are. You can make the evening fun and a time to remember. I never imagined that I would actually feel less stressed with no power. I simply felt like I had time for my children. I was not consumed with answering the phone, doing the dishes, or catching up on the latest news. We had an evening of pure simple fun.