August is Family Fun Month! The perfect opportunity to spend time with your family and (hopefully) remember how much you enjoy each other’s company. There isn’t much information about the history of this celebration, but I have to assume it has to do with two things: the hustle and bustle of the upcoming school year and the idyllic weather. Right?!
While a vacation can certainly be considered fun time together, it isn’t the only way to have some family fun. You don’t even have to take time off from work to join in the spirit. Truly! Just make a point of hanging out and doing something fun with your family on a regular basis this month.
If you’re anything like me, you always try to give things a healthy spin—not just for you but for the whole family. Sometimes that can mean expanding our minds, and other times it can mean strengthening our bodies through activity or nourishment. Family Fun Month is the perfect time to build on both.
Need some inspiration?
Pick your own [insert family favorite seasonal produce here]. Ever wanted to harvest some of your own food? PickYourOwn.org is a super cool (and useful) website that will help you find a “pick-your-own” farm near you. The only way you’ll eat more locally than this is if you have a lovely garden patch in your backyard. Picking their own produce right out of the ground will certainly give your kids a better sense of where their food is coming from. And who knows—maybe a visit to a pick-your-own farm will be the reminder you’ve been needing to finally start on that lovely backyard garden.
Choose a day of the week to explore nature in your area. When it comes to the great outdoors, northern Colorado has a boatload of natural areas that are ripe for exploration.
As a matter of fact, if my family visited just one of them each week, we’d be having family fun far beyond August. If you don’t feel like just going for a family hike around a pond or lake (though this is one of my favorites), there are lots of organized activities you can take part in as well. We’re fortunate to live in a place that focuses so much on the outdoors and being active. If you’re not here in northern Colorado, however, it’s worth the time and effort to see if you’ve got similar things going on where you live too.
Make movie night documentary night. Don’t think the family is interested in documentaries? They just might surprise you. Our middle guy is continuously drawn to shows such as the BBC’s epic documentary series Planet Earth—one of the many things I adore about him. But he’s not the only one. On a free afternoon a couple of weeks ago, I came across a documentary called The Creative Brain. Lo and behold, as soon as our other two boys walked into the room, they sat down and watched the whole thing with me.
I was inspired by one story of a struggling elementary school in Vermont that completely turned things around when they focused on “creativity and the arts at the heart of every subject.” Another inspiring episode featured a Louisiana prison that offered a creative writing program, letting the inmates share their stories, songs, whatever. You could see how it shifted the way they saw the world and themselves. Powerful things can happen when we allow ourselves to look at a situation through different lenses. If you search online for documentaries that cover a topic you’re curious about, chances are good that you’ll find one. Sure, you’ll stumble across some duds, but you’ll also find some that get you excited enough to dig a little deeper. We self-healthers know all about that, don’t we?
There ya have it—three ideas for celebrating Family Fun Month. All at little-to-no expense, but sure to open up conversations you wouldn’t have had otherwise. It’s a beautiful thing.
What kind of fun will your family have this month?
Images from iStock/DGLimages (main), monkeybusinessimages (post).
Paula Widish, author of Trophia: Simple Steps to Everyday Self-Health, is a freelance writer and self-healther. She loves nothing more than sharing tidbits of information she discovers with others. (Actually, she loves her family more than that—and probably bacon too.) Paula has a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Public Relations and is a Certified Professional Life Coach through International Coach Academy.
Products by Paula Widish
