Family Night: Loving Nature

What’s Family Night?? It’s when you have a designated night every week to sit down as a family, have a lesson, an activity, and a treat. Your lessons can be on things like: being honest, getting along with siblings, doing service for others, emergency & safety, being healthy, etc. If you are religious, then you could also incorporate your beliefs into Family Night.

Family night is something that we have done for a long time in my family! It’s awesome because it gives you a platform to teach your children things that are important. It shows your children that family matters and how important it is to take time for each other. And, it’s fun! My kids moan and groan if we miss a week, so that’s extra motivation for me!

Preparation: Make a picnic lunch/dinner, “Dirt Cups” for dessert (instructions, here.), and set up a blanket in the quietest spot of your yard. You will need a bag (grocery bags work) for each member of the family.

Lesson: Give everyone in the family a bag and send them outside. They will have 10 minutes to walk around outside and fill their bag with items from nature (rocks, sticks, leaves, a flower, a bug, a sliver of bark from a favorite tree, a berry, etc.) that they noticed and REALLY liked. When the 10 minutes is up, have everyone return to the picnic blanket and sit down. Take turns letting each person show their items and explain WHY they liked them. When everyone is done, talk about why it is important to appreciate nature and how we can take care of the earth. Have everyone be quiet and listen for a minute, what kinds of sounds do they hear (besides cars and people), what kinds of things can they smell outside??

Activity: Give everyone a perrenial and help them plant it somewhere in the yard. They will get to see it come back every year and remind them of this fun family moment/lesson you had outside together. (It also makes the earth more beautiful!) Teach them to take care of their plant by watering it, dead-heading, etc.

Treat: Picnic! Have a picnic in your yard, on the blanket. (Sandwiches, Carrots & Dip, Apple Juice, whatever…) Talk about your food and how what they are eating has been given to them by the earth. For dessert, have Dirt Cups (Crushed Oreos, Chocolate pudding, and a gummy worm in a cup…see picture and link above).