Family Nights 10 & 11

Week 10:  We raced toy cars!  Believe it or not, I was a toy car-loving girl when I was little.  I collected Hot Wheels, Matchbox, and Pocket Cars (Tomica).  The Pocket Cars were my favorite.  I still have my collection, and Isaac plays with them when we’re in the US.  My mom used to babysit a boy who was a little younger than me, and he’s the one who taught me the way to have a toy car race.  We each chose 10 cars and raced them one at a time in the entry hall.  We took turns to see who could roll our car the farthest without hitting the wall.  The loser lost his/her car, and the game continued until one person lost all his/her cars, and the other person won.  That’s why I chose Pocket Cars to buy—they rolled more smoothly than Hot Wheels or Matchbox!  Too bad they don’t sell them anymore.  Anyway, we decided to have our family night race on the dining room table, primarily because Greg doesn’t like getting down on the floor (he’s a tall guy).  We chose only 5 cars each to race, and guess who won!  Gabriela!  The youngest in the family!  Anyway, it was a lot of fun (even if Isaac grumped a bit about losing).

P.S.  Never put duct tape on a table.  Greg’s idea, not mine…just for the record.  ; )

  

 

Week 11:  Instead of doing a regular family night, we had Easter egg hunts with the kids.  We would have done that anyway, but we thought it was enough to count as a family night since we did it as a family.  We did Gabriela’s egg hunt separately and allowed Isaac and Moriah to hide hers (under my supervision).  Then Greg and I hid eggs for the older two.  We didn’t dye eggs this year, and we had a shortage of baskets, but they didn’t care. 

 

 

Family Nights 8 & 9

Family Night 8:  Littlest Pet Shops and Blocks

The idea was to use blocks to build pet houses for the LPS animals.  Even Isaac enjoyed playing with them.  We had lots of fun creating houses and sharing animals for awhile, but it did end up in a sort of war where we all tried secretly to capture each other’s pets!  All in good fun, though.  Next week I think we’re going to play either with Thomas trains or Hot Wheels!

Family Night 9:  The Andy Griffith Show

Well, we ended up not doing Thomas or Hot Wheels this week.  All of us but Greg have very nasty colds and do not feel well at all.  Because of this, we just made it an easy night and watched 2 episodes of The Andy Griffith Show together.  We have the first 5 seasons on DVD—Greg and I are big fans.  The kids normally don’t watch Andy Griffith, so it was something different for them.  I purposely chose episodes that had to do with animals (“The Loaded Goat” and “Dogs, Dogs, Dogs”), so that Gabriela would be interested.  All 3 of the kids really enjoyed them!  The Andy Griffith Show has potential for some good family discussions.  For example, the character Otis (the town drunk) being in “The Loaded Goat” allowed us to discuss how drunkenness makes you look and act stupid.

Tune in next week to see what we do for Week 10!

Family Night 7: Just Drawing!

My whole family enjoys drawing, so that’s what we did tonight.  It was Isaac’s idea, and the girls quickly agreed that they wanted to draw as well.  I was too much into my own drawing to think about taking pictures as they drew, but I did take a few when they were finished.  Gabriela’s drawing contains a few that her siblings drew for her, but some of it is hers.  I didn’t end up taking a photo of mine.

 

Family Night 6: Lego Fun

This week we sat at the table for some lego building!  Isaac only has one tub of lego bricks, not loads, so we had to share.  I also got Gabriela’s large-size lego bricks for her to play with.

 

 

My creation:

 

Family Night 5

Tonight we just played Mario Kart Wii together.  Even Gabriela got to play!  We set it up so that each person got to play twice, and each person got to choose the race once.  Unfortunately we have only 2 remotes, so we had to take turns.  It was fun, though.  The funny thing is that no one in these photos LOOKS like they’re having fun!  That’s because I took the shots as they were concentrating on playing.  We really did have fun!

Family Night 4

This week we sat around the table and played Pick and Draw.  Pick and Draw is a fabulous cartoon-drawing game.  No one wins or loses…you just have fun drawing funny characters and sharing about them.  We normally give our characters names and make up a description of what they like and what they do.  Click on the links to visit the website, where you can try your own hand at drawing a character.  Also, you can read my (unofficial) review of Pick and Draw HERE on my homeschool blog.

 

Here are a few of my characters:

Family Night 3

We had our family night on Monday this time because Greg took some neighbors to the airport on Sunday night. 

This week we had story time and popcorn!  Each of us selected a book to be read, plus Isaac and Moriah each selected an extra book to read aloud to the rest of us.  It was neat seeing which book each person chose, and we really did have fun reading together.  I also like giving the older two kids a chance to read aloud for practice.  Isaac is a very good reader anyway, but I’d like to give him more opportunities to read aloud to his sisters.  Moriah is a beginning reader and doing very well, and I think it boosted her confidence to get to read aloud to the family.  This was her first time reading aloud to all of us, and she was thrilled to do it!

Here are the books we read:

 

Greg chose There’s a Wocket in My Pocket (Dr. Seuss) to read, while I chose Good Work, Amelia Bedelia (Peggy Parish).  Isaac chose Handa’s Surprise (Eileen Browne) for me to read aloud, and he chose The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog! (Mo Willems) to read aloud himself.  We’re big fans of The Pigeon books because they’re so funny!  Moriah chose Bad Kitty (Nick Bruel), which is another very funny book.  I read that one aloud.  Moriah also chose Biscuit (Alyssa Satin Capucilli) to read aloud herself.  Gabriela chose Pancakes for Breakfast (Tomie dePaola), which is actually a wordless book.  Greg “read” that one, making up the story to match the pictures.  The kids love to read and to be read to.  We used to read them a story every night before bed, but we haven’t done that in awhile.  We must get back into that routine!

 

I’m very happy that we’ve done so well remembering to have a family night every week.  It’s fun trying to come up with different activities that we all can enjoy together.  In the past we’ve tried popcorn and a movie for family night, and to be honest, I don’t think watching a movie is the best idea.  I remember back (ages ago) when I was dating, I once heard someone say that going to the movies for a date was not a good idea because you don’t talk during a movie, and as a result you don’t get to know the person as well.  It’s the same for family time.  You may all enjoy the movie, but you’re not having conversation.  I think the best family nights are ones where you do an activity that allows you the freedom just to talk to each other…as a family.  That’s how you grow in your relationships anyway!  Sometimes our family activity has been only 30 minutes, but that’s 30 minutes of talking, giggling, and sharing.  Even though we do things together throughout the week (like homeschool) and also talk to each other a lot, we look forward to family night because it’s a time set aside just to have fun together.

Family devotions is another thing we once tried to get started (but failed).  We do say prayers together every night and also when a need arises, and I do teach the kids Bible in school, but I’d love to incorporate some more spiritual activities into our family nights, whether it’s something brief in addition to the regular activity, or whether it’s THE activity of the night.  Any ideas?

Family Night 2

This week we decided to color together!  We have a large collection of coloring books and a can full of crayons, so each of us got to choose a coloring book.  After coloring for awhile, my husband came up with the idea of drawing with our eyes closed.  One person would name an object to draw, and the other person would close their eyes and draw.  This activity brought a lot of laughter as we all took our turns.  Just doing something together as a family and laughing together is so refreshing!