Friday Family Fun Night
Every Friday Night is Lierman Family Fun Night in our house – board games, card games, wii games, pizza, salad, popcorn, pjs, sleeping bags, and a family movie. Then once a month we invite another family over pjs and all! My husband and I called it good old-fashioned family fun “old-school” style!
Here’s some of what we do for Lierman Family Friday Fun Nights:
- Play boardgames like: Checkers, Chess, and Pokemon Sorry
- Play games like: Jenga, BattleShip, and Yahtzee
- Play Wii games like: Wii Sports, Tony Hawk Downhill Jam, and Mario Kart
- Food and Snacks include: Pizza, Flavored Sparkling Water, Great Salad, + all kinds of flavored popcorn!
- PJs and MovieTime round out the night: We all get our pjs on and hunker down on the couches and sleeping bags and watch a fun family movie like: Over the Hedge, The Incredibles, or Spy Kids. We sometimes even order movies through our cable provider that we all haven’t seen.
Some of the benefits of a Family Fun Night:
Laughter
Games new ways to have fun and laugh together. Laughter brings a family closers and lightens up any stresses. Laughter lets everyone relax and have fun. Some games, like Twister or Taboo, can even be downright hilarious!
Family Bonding
It is spending time together. You would be amazed how much my kids look forward to our weekly Lierman Family Fun Night. They talk all week about what games we are going to play and what movie we are going to watch. I love it as a Mom because it brings our family together and allows us to reconnect in our busy worlds and schedules.
Learning
Game play allows your kids to learn from you and from each other. They learn how to play nice together and be encouraging. They learn how to a good winner and a good loser and be respectful of each other. These are all great things to practice for real life! Games also provide more obvious learning skills like deductive reasoning, budgeting skills, simple addition, multiplication, or spelling.
Life Skills
Games teach kids important life skills such as patience, concentration, teamwork and perseverance. By taking turns, following rules and even losing a game, kids learn skills that they can apply at school and in the home.
Once a month we invite another family over that has kids and we ask them to bring their pjs and sleeping bags and get ready for lots of family fun. Our kids come home thrilled and excited on Friday nights. Institute a Friday Family Fun Night in your house this week! Make it one of your family traditions.
MELISSA LIERMAN is a Wonder Woman of 39 Years, Wife of John 14 Years [middle school teacher], and Mother of 3 wonderful kids – MacKenzie Peter Age 11 [techno computer, blackberry loving, sensitive, guitar playing son], Maria Stella Age 9 [artistic and creative getting her soul filled each day at her first year at a performing arts school] , and Jonathan Roger Age 3 [lives to make you laugh and is the life of the party no matter wherever he goes!]. Melissa loves to help Moms to Maximize their Time with Systems, Tools, and Organization! Put yourself in a TimeOutMom and listen to her weekly Blog Talk Radio Show at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/timeoutmom. Check out her blog http://www.timeoutmom.blogspot.com for her latest tips, tricks, and systems to help with your family management.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Lara Galloway, MomItForward, Melissa Dawn Lierman, ZarBee's Cough Syrup, Troy Pattee and others. Troy Pattee said: RT @MomItFoward Friday Family Fun Night: Every Friday Night is Lierman Family Fun Night in ou… http://bit.ly/hR0Jvn [blog post - mom] [...]
[...] sometimes have popcorn as an after school snack and we always have popcorn on Friday nights for Lierman Family Fun Nights. I am inspired to spice up our popcorn by an awesome popcorn bar that was recently at the Blissdom [...]
What a cute family and a great tradition. So nice of you to invite neighbors over to share the fun. We have M&M nights each Monday. M&M = Music and a Message, & eat M&Ms. It has become tradition we all look forward to. http://www.obSEUSSed.com/2010/08/m-night-family-fun-night.html
I love this, Melissa! It’s exactly the type of thing I promote on my site, website FinancialRx.com. Families don’t need to spend a lot of money to have fun, bond and even build stronger ties within their neighborhood. That’s why I especially love the part where you sometimes invite other families over to join you for a night of movies in their PJs — fantastic!
It’s a lot like an article I wrote about on our site called website Free Fun With Kids: A Popcorn Party! In fact, if you ever wanted to guest post for Financial Rx, I would be honored.
Thanks and keep up the great stuff — I love Mom It Forward!
Wendy Mihm, Editor in Chief, FinancialRx.com
We have family fun nights on Friday night. The only down side is that the girls and I all have braces now so NO POPCORN!!! Who watches a movie without popcorn… yes, dorks with braces.
[...] sometimes have popcorn as an after school snack and we always have popcorn on Friday nights for Lierman Family Fun Nights. I am inspired to spice up our popcorn by an awesome popcorn bar that was recently at the Blissdom [...]