There are plenty of fun memory-making things you can do with your children. Here are some great ideas.
It’s the perfect time for memory-making. Entertain and have fun with your children during the next few warm weather months.
1. Cook your way round the world
Put up a world map in your home and select a country each fortnight. Nominate someone in the family to collect a handful of interesting facts and a typical dish from the chosen land and plan an evening in the style of Cuba, Cambodia, Korea, Kenya or Croatia. Why not throw in a little regional music and practise greeting each other in the appropriate language?
You could put little stickers on the map once you’ve “visited” and see how far you get round the world. Memory-making at its best, and it might even spark a far-flung holiday or a string of language lessons.
2. Make a couple of home movies
The easiest would be to capture the family doing what they like to do – playing with the dog, helping Mom bake brownies, bouncing on the sofa. Or you might like to come up with a list of questions and get everyone to answer them on film, as if on your very own chat show.
Get the drama queen in the family todress up and play the chat-show host. Questions could include: what’s the funniest thing that happened this week? What food would you prefer to never have to eat again? If you had to spend a night in one of these places: up a ladder in a crocodile enclosure, in a bath full of cockroaches or in the shark tank at the aquarium, which would you pick – and why?
3. Make a recording or audio book
Memory-making is not only for the children. If Grandpa lives in another city, you could make a special recording for his next birthday.
Include things like what everybody loves about Grandpa, some funny or happy stories they have about doing things with him.
This one, will really take memory-making to new heights. Ask the children to prepare short variety concert acts, especially for the birthday boy!
4. Annual family photo
Pick a special or beautiful spot in your home or garden and take a family photograph there each year. Choose a day you’re likely to remember and then take the photo on that day, every year. It’ll be fun to compare the snaps as the years go by and will tick all the memory-making boxes.
5. Get sporty
How about a game of rounders, volleyball, touch rugby or frisbee at your neighbourhood park or a nearby beach?
You don’t have to be a terribly athletic bunch, it’s more about getting outdoors and doing something together. Invite another family if you need a few more recruits and, if it’s a hit, you could make a monthly date of it.
6. Hold a cook-up or cook-off
Cooking together can be great fun and provides the perfect opportunity for family bonding and memory-making. How about a monthly sushi night? Or a pizza-making evening? Everyone gets to create their own dinner or try their hand at concocting a pizza (with a clever name) for the rest of the family to taste.
Another option is to turn it into a competition. Give each team (mom and brother versus dad and sister, perhaps) the same ingredients and see what meals are invented. Invite the neighbours over for lunch to taste the spoils and choose a winning dish.
7. Visit a working farm
You probably have some fond (and a few not-so-fond) memories of being sent to outdoor school camps to learn about farm life. There’s something magical about helping milk Moo-Moo the cow, or collecting freshly laid eggs from the chicken coop. Sound too sedate? Then visit a sheep farm in lambing season or drop in at a wine farm at harvest time (some will even allow you to get involved in the barefoot pressing of grapes).
8. Camp out
Turn your backyard into a campsite and have a camping weekend. Get out the sleeping bags, pitch a tent in the backyard, set up chairs around a campfire, tell spooky stories, sing your family’s favourite songs, using spoons or pots and pans to keep the beat. Don’t forget to indulge in some delicious campfire food, and, of course, include memory-making idea No 9!
9. Toast marshmallows over a fire
There’s nothing quite like the taste of a warm, gooey marshmallow as it dissolves in your mouth. But you don’t have to wait till you’re camping. Next time you have a braai, round up the family, hand out the kebab sticks and open a bag of marshmallows. Remember to supervise younger children.
Head over to this article to find some tasty and unusual camping recipes.
10. Go strawberry or cherry picking
Some of the yummiest summer fruit can be picked by hand on the farms where it grows. You can gather baskets of cherries in Ficksburg in the Free State (Ionia Cherry Farm, 072 585 3684, or Ceres (Klondyke Cherry Farm, 087 550 0232,). Gather handfuls of strawberries near Hartbeespoort (The Strawberry Farm, 082 503 5996) or in Stellenbosch (Mooiberge Farm, 021 881 3222).
