Frugal Family Fun

As summer draws to an end, most families have run through the traditional summer fun activities like camping and swimming. Here are some fun, inexpensive ideas to boost creativity and finish out your summer with a bang.

Backyard Fun
Use whatever you can find around the house/garage to design a family-friendly obstacle course in your backyard. Take turns going through it and give prizes for the fastest going forward and backward. You can use pillow cases for potato sack hopping, a broomstick across two chairs for a limbo stick, and a rope laid in a straight line that they must walk on like a balance beam. Add carnival games for fun like tossing balled up socks through holes in a poster board.

Theme Dinners
Have special nights where your meal centers around a particular theme. Have the kids come up with ideas and help with decorations. For example, a Fiesta night could include stringing up Christmas lights, and serving Mexican food with ribbons tied around the handles of serving utensils. A Wild West dinner could include eating beans and hot dogs outside, wearing bandannas and boots. For Backwards night you could wear your clothes inside out, eat your pudding with a fork and say each others names backwards.

Broadway at Home
Have your kids prepare a simple play based on a favorite story (using costumes and props from around the house). Invite some friends over and charge a quarter for admission. Provide popcorn and enjoy the show!

Community Service
Find a place where the whole family can work together as volunteers (serving food to the homeless, visiting the elderly in a nursing home, etc) or have a car wash, yard sale, or other fundraiser and donate the profits to a charitable organization. Divide the money up and let each child choose the recipient.

Scavenger Hunt
Have a list of items or descriptions (like white circle, blue rectangle, etc) that kids have to find and bring back. For a treasure hunt, hide clues and treasures around the house and follow a map or decode clues to find the next location. Parents or kids can design the scavenger hunt and come up with fun prizes (inexpensive treats like popsicles or coloring books). For young children use simple picture clues instead of words.

For more cheap summer fun ideas or to submit your own ideas check out the blog carnival at http://singleparents.about.com/b/2009/07/07/cheap-fun-blog-carnival-for-august-2009.htm