Thrifty Living Activities - Keep Your Children Busy With Thrifty Theme Days

Keeping your children busy can be a challenge any time of the year, but it becomes even more of a challenge in the summer months. Finding thrifty activities can present more of a problem. When the day is long and the kids are bored, try implementing a theme day.

Here are four examples to get you started,

Color Day:

Choose a color and have everyone in the family wear that color, make food that is mostly that color, create some artwork using the color of the day, use the color in as many sentences as possible throughout the day, have everyone make a list of everything they can think of that is the color of the day, read a book that is either about that color or is about colors, for older children - have them find a book with the color in the title, get out a set of crayons and see how many varieties of the color the family can find and color pictures using those crayons, make a cake or cupcake and color the frosting the color of the day, have the children write and perform a play about the color, and finally - take a picture of the family and using a photoshop program, either on your own computer or at your local copy or camera store, change the base color of the photo and put it in a scrapbook. In fact you can take pictures all day and create a small scrapbook of the whole day.

Astronaut Day:

Everyone wear either white jumpsuits or white pants and shirts, make rockets out of paper towel rolls and construction paper, drink Tang and eat food bars and energy bars, for meals try to think of things that could be eaten in a space ship, for younger children make a space ship out of a large box with holes cut out of the front and sides for windows, read a story or book about space, make a mobile out of clothes hangers with string and planets made of construction paper, draw pictures of either astronauts or planets, after dark look at the stars, have each child write a story about their life as an astronaut, play a game of marbles and pretend they are planets, make a poster of an astronaut with a seperate picture of the bubble helmet and play Pin The Helmet On The Astronaut, have everyone think of an activity related to astronauts or space, and finally - take a picture of the whole family and put it in a scrapbook.

Princess Day:

If your children are girls, have everyone dress as a princess using either dress up clothes they already have or some old scarves and dresses, have a tea party with finger sandwiches - just make regular sandwiches with the crust cut off and cut into fourths, have a fashion show to show off the gowns they are wearing, color pictures of princesses, make crowns and wear them, read a story about a princess, write and perform a play about being a princess, for older girls write who they would help in the world if they had the power of a princess, and finally - take a picture of the whole family and put it in a scrapbook.

Animal Day:

Everyone choose an animal to be for the day, dress as that animal or even in the colors of that animal, have each child pick their animal name, eat animal cookies for a snack, make masks out of paper plates or construction paper, read a story about each animal, have each child draw and color a picture of the animal they are for the day, play Red Rover using the animal names, play any board games that you have that are animal related, go outside and run around like animals, have each child do a skit acting like their animal, for older children see how many words they can make out of the letters of their animal - for example elephant could produce the words "the", "ant", "thee", "pant", etc., have them write their favorite things about their animal, and finally - take a picture of the whole family and put it in a scrapbook.

The theme days you and your family can come up with are endless. Just enjoy your thrifty theme days and your summer.