19 Ideas For Family Entertainment At Home
While I’m not yet a parent, I do know that with busy work and school schedules, finding time to be together as a family requires deliberate intentions. Here are 19 Ideas For Family Entertainment At Home…
Making cherished memories at home is so important, whether you’re just starting out as a young couple, or you have a house-full of kids.
Many enjoyable, affordable, fun home activities require little to no planning as long as you have the needed materials and know the rules.
With that in mind, here they are:
19 Ideas For Family Entertainment At Home
- Escape Rooms
Create escape rooms for fun-filled game days at home.
An escape room is a game involving two to ten individuals locked up in a room for a specific time. When in this room, you must do your best to try and solve clues to escape the room.
Making an escape room requires skill, focus, and innovation to create a great game. You must make the story look compelling and ensure you can rescue your family member should they get stuck.
Alternatively, you can take time and visit an actual escape room so you can get an idea of how to develop yours. For instance, you may want to check out Escape room games in Portland OR for numerous eye-opening escape room ideas.
You can learn the need for an emergency exit door and how to set design, themed environments, theatrics, creating a compelling story, integrating lights and sound effects, and installing locks.
Once you visit such facilities and have a rough idea of how an escape room is set up, you’ll have an easier time doing yours at home with your family.
- Cooking Contest
Hold a cooking contest while trying out new recipes.
This can be a great learning experience, especially if you cook foods you’ve never tried before! (Try these recipes with your kids, they’re easy and utterly delicious – my HEAVENLY Walnut Pear Carrot Cake (pictured above) and my Sugar Free Apple Date Cake)
Start by creating the contest rules. Set cooking stations, ask everyone to change into suitable clothing, set a timeline, and specify how the results will be evaluated by one of your family members.
Choose different recipes, such as tacos or healthy lasagne and divide them among family groups; every group should have a chance to prepare a specific food item. Then, you can taste everyone’s cooking and discuss how much you enjoy your meals.
Check out my dessert recipes for sweet treat inspiration 🙂 These Easy Chocolate Coconut Cashew Bites are are real crowd pleaser – and they’re good for you!
- Create Tie-Dye Clothing
Have your kids decorate shirts, socks, or blankets with tie-dye.
Ideally, you use plain coloured t-shirts or socks for this. Then, tie the material at specific spots using strings and balls and dip them in dye to create fun patterns.
You can achieve a similar effect with black clothes using bleach instead of coloured dye…to create really stunning black, white and grey tie-dye effects – I’ve seen quite striking dresses and tank tops done in this way.
You can buy tie-dye sets at your local craft store which make for a really easy project.
- Art And Crafts
Have a crafty time together as a family (probably best suited to crafty parents with small kids).
You can get all sorts of art supplies and spread them out on a table. Then, create different art stations so you can take turns and move from one station to the next.
On the other hand, you can incorporate different art and craft game ideas, such as making jewellery, drawing or painting.
- Laser Games
Use red string to create “laser beams” in a large room or a few rooms of your home. These “beams” should intercept in places and be at the right height for kids too.
Then everyone takes a turn at trying to get from one point to another without making any contact with the lasers. You can even place a precious item in the middle of the beams that you have to “steal” or retrieve and take with you to safe zone.
The winner can be rewarded with their favourite treat, or a pre-determined gift or act of service from the rest of the family.
- Solve Puzzles Together
Once you get everyone together for a game night, you can introduce an innovative, cognitive, and problem-solving activity such as a large puzzle.
The more pieces in the puzzle and the smaller the pieces are, the more challenging the task will be. Also, if you want a real brain-teaser, choose a puzzle with a similar colour palate throughout – this makes it really tricky!!
There are also 3D puzzles available now – like puzzles of the world and the Eiffel Tower etc.
You may want to choose a picture puzzle depicting a meaningful place to your family, perhaps your desired vacation destination like Italy or an under-the-sea puzzle.
You can spend hours together sorting and arranging the pieces to complete the picture. If you have a giant puzzle, this may take a few days as you’ll for sure need to take breaks and come back to it again when you feel like it.
- Card games
Teach your kids how to play different card games such as Crazy Eights, Slapjacks (AKA slaps), Hearts, Uno, or Gin.
A deck of cards can provide SO much entertainment for you and your family at home.
Since you most likely have your favourite card games from when you were young, you can educate your kids on how to play.
I remember having the best time in the evenings at Kariba when I was a kid with my cousins and family friends playing card games. Our favourite was Pond Scum, lol. The good ol’ days!
- Video Games
You and your family can play a competitive video game and see who will be the first to win.
Take turns playing with each other in twos or fours. You don’t have to be a master at it, but you can take turns playing and learn the basics as you go.
Keep a record of the person who wins and set aside a prize for them, perhaps pizza or ice-cream, to motivate everyone to participate.
- Family Shoot
You can hire a professional photographer, or, more affordably, just set your camera or smartphone up on a tripod or high (and sturdy) position, put it on timer and take your own family photos in your garden or even in your living room.
It can be a lot of fun – you can colour co-ordinate your outfits to suit the season, or to tie in with your home decor if you want to frame a few photos to hang on your walls.
We did this once as a family and we got some really lovely photos which I still love all these years later.
19 Ideas For Family Entertainment At Home continue…
- Family Yoga
Yoga is an excellent exercise that all your family members can enjoy and engage in.
There are yoga tutorials you can watch to understand basic poses and meditation tactics. It’s one way of keeping fit while enjoying family time.
I do yoga almost every single day and I love Boho Beautiful Yoga, they have a free 14 Day Yoga & Meditation Journey, check them out on YouTube!
- Board Games
Dominos, Cranium, Trouble, Monopoly, Cluedo and Traffic Jam are examples of board games you can play as a family.
You can purchase a board game that the whole family is interested in. Better still, ask for ideas from everyone and then take a vote on the best two games, that way everyone is happy.
- Freeze Dancing
For a little light entertainment, select a favourite song and play a freeze game as it plays.
First, a pose is chosen, then the music starts and everyone dances until the music stops, and everyone must freeze in the chosen specific pose.
For instance, you might choose the freeze posture as one imitating animals or trees or shapes…It’s pretty amusing as everyone tries to pull off these hilarious poses.
- Play Dress Up
Dressing up can help your children explore their creativity and boost their confidence.
You can simulate a specific occasion and pick a suitable theme. For example, you can have a high-tea party and have everyone dress appropriately for the occasion.
You can use dresses, hats, scarves, shoes, or jewellery to create unique costumes.
Alternatively you can buy affordable costumes for kids and adults from certain stores or online that kids just love! They can dress up as their favourite cartoon character or super-hero.
- Treasure Hunt
Setting up a treasure hunt at home is always an exciting activity for kids. Indoors and outdoors if possible.
Everyone loves the idea of looking for hidden treasures! You can hide clues creatively so that family members have to search for them.
Hide mini-treasures on the way to the main treasure to keep the incentive flowing.
Another way to do this is with a home-made treasure map. If you’re handy with a pen and paper, this can be a really fun activity for your kids, plus they’ll learn how to read a basic map.
- Flashlight Games
Pair up different family members, both young and old, and then switch off the lights, give everyone time to hide and have one team begin hunting for the others.
Time each team to see who finds everyone the fastest and they will be the winners!
- Water Balloon Fight
When the weather is warm, you can play outside with water balloons.
It’s a simple idea that will likely cause all kinds of fun and belly giggles and result in some very tired individuals indeed. Wins all round!
Fill balloons with about 1 cup water and a little bit of air and then tie up, you don’t want the balloons to be too big or too full or air.
The person who manages to evade the balloons is the winner of the game (there is usually no winner, lol, which is kind of the point). You can create mini-teams if you like, or just have a free for all water balloon fight!
- Movie Night
Pick a movie for the whole family to enjoy. These days, you will not run short of family-friendly movies because there are numerous streaming services you can choose from.
Select several films for a full-on movie evening complete with popcorn and pizza or toasted cheese sandwiches for dinner, or choose just one special movie and then move onto reading books before bed.
- Indoor Camping
Indoor camping in your living room with your kids can be a really sweet time.
It’s a perfect time for everyone to leave their rooms and sleep in one place for a night, this can feel like a real treat and be really special for small kids.
Just put up a tent in the lounge with a soft rug or a thin mattress, add lots of cushions and a nice big, fluffy blanket, light some candles and perhaps have a picnic dinner.
If you have a fireplace in your living room, light the fire for a real “campey” feel. You could also enjoy camping foods like hot dogs and s’mores while telling stories by the crackling fire.
- Karaoke
Karaoke helps you explore your singing ability, or lack there of, lol.
If you have a karaoke microphone, you and your family can pick your favourite music, and sing along for fun. It’s really not about being a good singer, it’s all about the fun of it.
You could purchase a karaoke machine if you don’t already have one, it’s a great activity for the whole family.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this post on my 19 Ideas For Family Entertainment At Home!
There are many family entertainment ideas you can enjoy at home with your family to eliminate boredom and encourage bonding, I hope you’ll try some of the ideas from this post.
And if you do, let me know how they went by dropping me a comment below! I always love hearing from you.
Thanks for reading 19 Ideas For Family Entertainment At Home, check back soon for more healthy recipes, travel and decor posts and more!
