Kid-Friendly Backyard Weekend Activities
Need some activity ideas to keep your kids entertained for the weekend? If you’re lucky enough to have a backyard, you won’t even have to leave home to keep them playing and having fun all weekend long. Kids have one thing adults often forget about and that’s imagination! Leverage that wild spirit and that creative mind your child has - in fact, help them develop it and encourage free-thinking by getting them unplugged from that iPad or laptop and send them out to the backyard. Here are a few things you can do in the backyard to keep your kids enjoying themselves without ever having to leave the house!
Scavenger Hunt
Create a little adventure for your kids and set up a scavenger hunt in the backyard. You can even make it themed, like a hidden pirate’s treasure chest buried somewhere in the backyard - give them a map, clues, and a treasure to find where X marks the spot! You can hide an actual prize for them to find or create a prize that they win at the end if they are playing against siblings or other children in the same household, to give it a little competitive edge. Maybe the winner, whoever is first to find the hidden treasure gets to choose the movie that the family watches that night or gets to choose where the next family trip will be.
Build a Treehouse
This is a much more involved project. If you choose to build a treehouse, this will definitely involve mom and dad or at least just one of you. But taking on a construction project like building a treehouse is a great bonding project that teaches your child about the benefits of hard work and how to see a project through to completion and allows some great bonding time between you and your child or children. You’ll both have memories from this joint project for years to come. It also allows them to fully appreciate the end result once it’s done! Be sure to take all the appropriate safety measures and consult with experts since the treehouse will need to be foolproof and 100% safe once it’s done.
Build a Fort
Maybe a whole treehouse is a bit too much. If so, opt for a scaled down version of it - like a fort! You can make a fort out of pretty much anything. From old cardboard boxes you might have in the garage - or maybe even just pick up at your local home improvement store - or you can use chairs, sheets and pillows! The best part is you can take it all down whenever and it’s not such an involved, permanent structure like a treehouse. Your kids can definitely take this project on themselves without any help from mom and dad.
Backyard Yoga or Dance
Get up and get moving! Keep your kids active and organize an impromptu yoga class or dance class in your backyard. Make it more of an event by ordering some matching family activewear like matching printed leggings + matching printed sports bras or tops beforehand. Put on some music and get moving! You can live stream a yoga or dance instructor or you can learn some moves and lead. Or let your daughter lead!
Backyard Camping
If your kids love the outdoors, why not set up a tent in the backyard and camp in your own backyard? You can study the sounds of the nocturnal wildlife and record them to listen to later and look up what species might be around in your neighborhood. You can even do a bonfire and cook up some s’ mores if you have a fire pit area or enough space to create one! Get creative and bring the great outdoors to your backyard for an adventurous night in nature.
Movie Night
If you and your kids love watching movies together ( who doesn’t?) and you happen to have a projector, consider a backyard movie night! Set up a big sheet to serve as the projector screen, maybe hang some small white Christmas lights around for decor, throw some sheets and pillows on the ground, pop some popcorn, get comfy and get a movie going!
