via NEW KIDS-CENTER: If you want to have fun with your kids and want to spend quality time with your family, then the following family activities are ideal for you. Not only are these family activities a great source of enjoyment for all involved,butit gives you a chance to get to know your kids better and to interact with them more openly. Such activities can help in forming a strong bond between family members. It does not matter where in the world you liveengaging in family activities can give you a great deal of satisfaction.

Eight Recommended Family Activities

1. Record a Family Video

Ask theelder members of the family to share their life experiences with the kids and record them on a video camera while they are sharing their stories. These videos are going to become a source of knowledge for the children and willeducate them about life and can be regarded as their heritage as well. They can motivate the kids and give them a sense of pride. You can also ask the family members to conduct interviews of each other and record those on tape. These sound bites can serve as a precious time capsule for your family.

2. Work Together in the Garden

Get the whole family to work in the garden. Plant some seeds into a patch of soil and ask all the family members to join in and help you in taking care of the small plants. Assign the tasks for the kids and parents, so all of them will get to participate in nurturing theseedlings as they grow up. This activity will help children in learning the important lesson about loving nature and would, as well as giving them immense pleasure and joy when they watch the seeds turn into beautiful flowers and plants.

3. Cook Meals Together

Have the children join you in the kitchen and cook a meal with you. It will be a fun exercise for the kids and they are sure to enjoy it a lot. Eating meals that you have cooked together always helps in fostering a strong bond among family members and also gives you a chance to communicate freely with your kids. This is why psychologists recommend families eating their meals together.

4. Watch Movies Together

Watching movies together with theentire family is also an activity that can strengthen ties among family members. You can watch movies picked either by you or your children. The idea is to enjoy a movie with the kids and to discuss the important lessons that the movie teaches. Remember to have some popcorn ready when watching the movie and make sure that the movies are family-oriented and can give some sort of a message to the kids. Movies, likeToy Story 2, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, How to Train Your Dragon, Hugo, A Bug’s Life and Spy Kids, are some of the movies that you can watch with your kids.

5. Reading and Painting

Reading a favorite book together is also a great way of uniting family. Pick out a story that is loved by all the family members and ask one of members to read it aloud. You can take turns to read the story as well. You can also ask the children to paint and makeself portraits. Give the children paints and colors and let them loose. You can always join them while they are making it and help them in creating the perfect portrait. After they have finished, hang the portraits on walls, telling everyone how artistic your kids are.

6. Go Camping

Going on a camping trip with kids can prove to be a great exercise which brings all of you together and strengthen the bond between you and your kids. Remember to brush up on your story telling skills before going on a camping trip so that you can keep your children entertained. With so many apps available to you on your phone, you can also educate your child about the natural wildlife while on your camping trip.

7. Take Exercise and Do Sport Together

Exercising and doing a sport together is a great way of spending quality time with your kids. Not only will it help you in keeping your family fit and healthy, but it will also provide a fun activity that you can all participate in. It can offer you the chance to teach some important life lessons to your kids as well. You can play any kind of team sport that the entire family is interested in, such as going for a bike ride if you and your kids are into biking.

8. Play Some Games

• Board Games

Board games like Checkers, Scrabble and Monopoly can be ideal family games that you can play with your kids. They can help you in keeping your children entertained and improve their strategy skill, word building and money skills, etc.

• Q&A

Invent interesting questions about your family’s likes and dislikes and write them down on card paper. Write the answers of these questions on the backside of these cards and begin the game. The person who answers the all questions correctly wins.

• Kick the Can

This is a fun game in which more than four people can participate at once. One child has to kick a can and count till a hundred while the other hide. Then the kicker has to search for them after setting the can straight. The gameends when all the hiding people are captured by the kicker.

• Scavenger Hunt

Going on a scavenger hunt is also a great game that you can play with your kids. The items of the scavenger hunt can be anything and the reward can be a dollar or any memorable items.