So, I posted about the re-sale clothing question yesterday. Over the next few days, I’ll give you my two-cent ideas on inexpensive vacation activities for school vacations at home - since I’m in the middle of one right now.
February vacation is the toughest vacation to do at home in the Northeast, with little expenditure. It’s cold so the kids can’t run amuck outside too much, winter sports like skiing and snowboarding are expensive and the general winter doldrums have set in so activities sometimes need to be more than just entertaining, but also pick-me-ups.
We rarely go away for February vacation. April maybe, but February is just too close to the deficit run-up at the holidays. Not enough time to fill the coffers again. So, over the past several years, with the kids at school ages, we’ve come up with some creative, inexpensive and fun ideas to make vacation feel like vacation.
The most important thing is to plan ahead. Sit down together and discuss what you’d like to do. Plan a budget for each activity and choose the top favorites that you can afford. Then, plan when and where for each activity. Get any necessary invitations out early enough to avoid disappointment.
I find that one or two days of “home-time” is good. Vacation is a time for fun, but also for rest in the middle of a busy and relentless school year. So I usually try to plan activities for 3 of the 5 days of the vacation week; leaving 2 days for rest, or rescheduling if necessary, and the weekends for family time and re-grouping for back to school.
Over the next few days I’ll write about one idea each day, starting with the SCAVENGER HUNT, a way-too-cool event…
THE SCAVENGER HUNT
I find this is easiest with two adults as the ability to drive each “team” makes the hunt more fun. But, if only one adult is available, or driving is not an option due to weather, the scavenger hunt can be catered to the group at hand. When we did this as a family, it wasn’t even vacation – just a weekend when we wanted to do something fun – and funny. This could also be a great group activity for scout troops or just groups of friends, and I know my cousins did this once while they were away on vacation – a game that travels!
First, we divided into teams – AJ and Grace on one team, Jake and I on the other. We determined a time limit of 2 hours. We also decided that each team could have $20 to spend (you can eliminate or alter the money factor – read on). Then, we made up a list of things that needed to be found. We decided on 10 items. AJ was awesome at making this list. It included things like:
Fur or feather
Something pink and something blue
Something old
Something with your name or your best friend’s name on it
A dead thing (really – think about it – it’s not that hard)
A pamphlet or brochure to a tourist attraction
A piece of nature from the beach or woods
You can add anything to your list you can think of. Be creative. Here are a few other ideas:
Something you could eat, but wouldn’t
A sign or symbol of the sun
Something recycled
A handkerchief
Once we had our list, time and $ sorted out, we picked our judges (read more about judging later on). We chose some friends in town and ended our hunt at their house so they could do the judging. It was great to get them involved and just added to the fun. You could certainly be your own judges too. More on that later too.
We set our clocks and we went hunting. We drove all over, one team per car, and hunted like crazy, trying to be as creative with our finds as we could. For “something pink”, AJ and Grace went to the Easter display at the local Rite Aid and bought a huge pink bunny – totally ridiculous. For “fur or feather”, Jake and I stopped at a sheep farm and asked the farmer for a tuft of wool. We also did a grave rubbing (did I say that?) at a very old cemetery for “something old” and our opponents found an old cow bell at a thrift shop. For “something dead” AJ and Grace bought a steak.
When all items are found, or time is up, your judge(s) will need to determine the winning team. Judging is based on points: up to 10 points for the best items, down to 1 point for the sickly lame ones, and no points if a team didn’t get an item at all.
The team with the most points wins.
Other factors in judging could be money spent and time spent. You may decide that the team that spends the least money gets extra points; or you may decide that the amount of money spent doesn’t make any difference in points at all. Or, a team might lose points if they spend more than their allotted funds. You can also eliminate the money factor all together and decide that no one is allowed to spend ANY money at all during the hunt. If a team doesn’t make it back to “home” with all items in the allotted time, do they lose points? Do you get extra points for finishing early with all your finds? Figure all this out and set the rules clearly.
When making your list, it’s okay if some of the things seem really easy. For instance, we live near the edge of the woods, and about a 15-minute drive from the beach. So, “a piece of nature from the woods or the beach” seemed really easy to all of us. However, we can’t park near the edge of the woods, so there’s a short walk to get a stick or acorn. And, with the time constraint of 2 hours, if you have to drive 15 minutes both ways to and from the beach, and you can’t pick up any other scavenger items along the way…that’s a lot of time. Sometimes the easiest things aren’t so easy. Plus, if you’re getting points for creativity, an acorn might not suffice, unless of course, it’s attached to a dead squirrel.
We found that the plethora of bizarre and ridiculous items laid out on the table was just plain entertaining in itself. The actual hunt was way too much fun. Jake and I were high-fiving and shouting in the car as we pulled away from that sheep farm. I mean, really, is that the coolest find? But AJ and Grace pointed out that wool isn’t technically fur. And they also felt that the grave rubbing (aside from being illegal – which could be a demerit if you need to be all righteous) was not itself old, the actual gravestone was old, and we didn’t have that with us. On the other hand, AJ and Grace had spent almost all of their allotted funds, and Jake and I had only spent a few dollars (blue and pink ice creams at Dairy Queen for “something pink and something blue”). So, the judging in the end became a comedy of opinions and facts with each team rallying up to the judges and trying to convince them of their better wares.
We still have some of the scavenger items around the house: the pink bunny, the cow bell, a taxidermy rodent of some kind. Of course, the steak is long gone – after a big hunt, you need a big meal.
Upcoming ideas:
Winter Party
Geocaching Travel Bugs
Bonfire
Cross Country skiing/snowshoeing
February vacation is the toughest vacation to do at home in the Northeast, with little expenditure. It’s cold so the kids can’t run amuck outside too much, winter sports like skiing and snowboarding are expensive and the general winter doldrums have set in so activities sometimes need to be more than just entertaining, but also pick-me-ups.
We rarely go away for February vacation. April maybe, but February is just too close to the deficit run-up at the holidays. Not enough time to fill the coffers again. So, over the past several years, with the kids at school ages, we’ve come up with some creative, inexpensive and fun ideas to make vacation feel like vacation.
The most important thing is to plan ahead. Sit down together and discuss what you’d like to do. Plan a budget for each activity and choose the top favorites that you can afford. Then, plan when and where for each activity. Get any necessary invitations out early enough to avoid disappointment.
I find that one or two days of “home-time” is good. Vacation is a time for fun, but also for rest in the middle of a busy and relentless school year. So I usually try to plan activities for 3 of the 5 days of the vacation week; leaving 2 days for rest, or rescheduling if necessary, and the weekends for family time and re-grouping for back to school.
Over the next few days I’ll write about one idea each day, starting with the SCAVENGER HUNT, a way-too-cool event…
THE SCAVENGER HUNT
I find this is easiest with two adults as the ability to drive each “team” makes the hunt more fun. But, if only one adult is available, or driving is not an option due to weather, the scavenger hunt can be catered to the group at hand. When we did this as a family, it wasn’t even vacation – just a weekend when we wanted to do something fun – and funny. This could also be a great group activity for scout troops or just groups of friends, and I know my cousins did this once while they were away on vacation – a game that travels!
First, we divided into teams – AJ and Grace on one team, Jake and I on the other. We determined a time limit of 2 hours. We also decided that each team could have $20 to spend (you can eliminate or alter the money factor – read on). Then, we made up a list of things that needed to be found. We decided on 10 items. AJ was awesome at making this list. It included things like:
Fur or feather
Something pink and something blue
Something old
Something with your name or your best friend’s name on it
A dead thing (really – think about it – it’s not that hard)
A pamphlet or brochure to a tourist attraction
A piece of nature from the beach or woods
You can add anything to your list you can think of. Be creative. Here are a few other ideas:
Something you could eat, but wouldn’t
A sign or symbol of the sun
Something recycled
A handkerchief
Once we had our list, time and $ sorted out, we picked our judges (read more about judging later on). We chose some friends in town and ended our hunt at their house so they could do the judging. It was great to get them involved and just added to the fun. You could certainly be your own judges too. More on that later too.
We set our clocks and we went hunting. We drove all over, one team per car, and hunted like crazy, trying to be as creative with our finds as we could. For “something pink”, AJ and Grace went to the Easter display at the local Rite Aid and bought a huge pink bunny – totally ridiculous. For “fur or feather”, Jake and I stopped at a sheep farm and asked the farmer for a tuft of wool. We also did a grave rubbing (did I say that?) at a very old cemetery for “something old” and our opponents found an old cow bell at a thrift shop. For “something dead” AJ and Grace bought a steak.
When all items are found, or time is up, your judge(s) will need to determine the winning team. Judging is based on points: up to 10 points for the best items, down to 1 point for the sickly lame ones, and no points if a team didn’t get an item at all.
The team with the most points wins.
Other factors in judging could be money spent and time spent. You may decide that the team that spends the least money gets extra points; or you may decide that the amount of money spent doesn’t make any difference in points at all. Or, a team might lose points if they spend more than their allotted funds. You can also eliminate the money factor all together and decide that no one is allowed to spend ANY money at all during the hunt. If a team doesn’t make it back to “home” with all items in the allotted time, do they lose points? Do you get extra points for finishing early with all your finds? Figure all this out and set the rules clearly.
When making your list, it’s okay if some of the things seem really easy. For instance, we live near the edge of the woods, and about a 15-minute drive from the beach. So, “a piece of nature from the woods or the beach” seemed really easy to all of us. However, we can’t park near the edge of the woods, so there’s a short walk to get a stick or acorn. And, with the time constraint of 2 hours, if you have to drive 15 minutes both ways to and from the beach, and you can’t pick up any other scavenger items along the way…that’s a lot of time. Sometimes the easiest things aren’t so easy. Plus, if you’re getting points for creativity, an acorn might not suffice, unless of course, it’s attached to a dead squirrel.
We found that the plethora of bizarre and ridiculous items laid out on the table was just plain entertaining in itself. The actual hunt was way too much fun. Jake and I were high-fiving and shouting in the car as we pulled away from that sheep farm. I mean, really, is that the coolest find? But AJ and Grace pointed out that wool isn’t technically fur. And they also felt that the grave rubbing (aside from being illegal – which could be a demerit if you need to be all righteous) was not itself old, the actual gravestone was old, and we didn’t have that with us. On the other hand, AJ and Grace had spent almost all of their allotted funds, and Jake and I had only spent a few dollars (blue and pink ice creams at Dairy Queen for “something pink and something blue”). So, the judging in the end became a comedy of opinions and facts with each team rallying up to the judges and trying to convince them of their better wares.
We still have some of the scavenger items around the house: the pink bunny, the cow bell, a taxidermy rodent of some kind. Of course, the steak is long gone – after a big hunt, you need a big meal.
Upcoming ideas:
Winter Party
Geocaching Travel Bugs
Bonfire
Cross Country skiing/snowshoeing
1 comment:
I remember when you did this! You all had such a blast. It's been on my list for things I want to do with Dan and Vi someday.
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