Movies are expensive, long trips take too much gas, and summer’s in full swing. How do you keep the family busy on a shrinking budget?

Here are a few ideas for inexpensive fun you can have as a family.

And as your family goes the inexpensive route for fun, you might discover that your kids like simple, old-fashioned kinds of entertainment. Who knows, your family might even want to do more together.

The outdoors

Visit a local park. Swings and slides are great for younger children, and parents or older children can push the younger ones or even swing themselves.

Go for a picnic. Take a few loaves of French bread, a big hunk of cheese, your favorite fruit and a blanket. Mix sparkling water and juice for a fun, fancy drink.

Buy a football or a baseball and teach the children how to throw it.

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Get some sidewalk chalk and make a mural on your driveway.

Play Frisbee. If you like golf, try disc golf, or “Frisbee golf” as it’s also known. There’s a widely known course in Waller Park in Orcutt, and you can also visit http://pdga.com/course/ to find another disc golf course near you.

The Waller Park course has detailed signs and directions so you can learn as you go, or you can often meet a more experienced player on the course who’ll be glad to talk about the game.

While you’re at Waller Park, you can put a quarter into a special vending machine near the pond, get some duck food, and have some fun watching them chase what you toss.

Fun and games

Blow bubbles (see recipe at right). This is a great warm-weather outdoor activity but can even be done indoors in bad weather, as long as you remember that the soap in a bursting bubble can make your floors slippery and sting a small child’s eyes.

Board games do cost money up front, but they can be used over and over again for many years.

Go for games that don’t eliminate players, don’t require much strategy (if you have younger children), and don’t require expensive or specialized equipment.

An example is Fictionary, where the goal is to guess the correct definition of an unfamiliar word. One person reads out an unfamiliar word and writes down its definition on a note card. Players write down their own definitions and mix them with the actual definition. You get points if you guess the correct definition or if someone else chooses your fake definition.

Low-cost city programs

Check with your city’s parks and recreation department for free or low-cost activities.

In Santa Maria, a recreation program for children ages 6 to 12 is offered by the Recreation and Parks Department. The free, supervised drop-in program provides organized sports, games, arts and crafts.

The Rec and Parks department and the People for Leisure and Youth (P.L.A.Y.) will offer free recreation swim dates at the Paul Nelson Aquatic Center from 12:30 to 3:30 p.m. today and Aug. 24.

Scholarships are available for the city’s summer camp program for ages 6 through 12, which runs Monday through Friday until Aug. 22. The camp offers youth nutrition and exercise information, conflict resolution skills, and recreational activities.

For more about Santa Maria’s programs, call their Recreation and Parks Department at 925-0951, Ext. 260.

In Grover Beach, the Parks and Recreation department will co-sponsor a free summer concert series at the Ramona Garden Park Center from 3 to

6:30 p.m. Aug. 17 and 31, and Sept. 14 and 28. For information, call 473-4580.

A free Stone Soup Music Faire will take place 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 23, and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 24, at the Ramona Garden Park Center. The event will include music, ethnic food, crafts, wine tasting, and other activities. For more information, call the Grover Beach Chamber of Commerce at 489-9091.

Lompoc’s Parks, Recreation, and Urban Forestry Department offers summer aquatics programs, including recreational swim, water exercise classes, family swim, and parent and tot swim until Aug. 18, as well as other aquatic programs year-round. Call 875-8100 or visit www.cityoflompoc.com for more information.

The city’s recreation department also offers a list of walking trails at its Activity Guide Web site. Visit www.cityof

lompoc.com/departments/parks_rec/ActivityGuide.htm and click on “Parks and Facilities,” or call 875-8100 for information.

Arts and other stuff

Do a “toy inventory” to see what you already have. Organize the toys you have in clear boxes with lids so children can see them easily. Donate the rest, or maybe sell them on eBay if you’re Internet-savvy.

Keep an eye out for high school or community productions of your favorite theater shows.

Check out audio CDs, movies or books from the library, which are free, and listen to them, watch them or read them as a family.

Go to a museum, but call ahead to make sure the museum’s exhibits are age-appropriate. See our Entertainment Calendar, which is published each Friday, for a partial list of local museums; or see a more comprehensive list on our Web site, www.santamariatimes.com. (Click on the “Arts & Entertainment” link in the blue bar near the top of the Web page, then scroll down to the bottom of that page, where you’ll find it listed under “Local Entertainment News.”)

Visit an art gallery. A partial list is available in the Entertainment Calendar. As with the museums, call ahead to determine age-appropriateness.

Volunteer. Call a local nonprofit group to see if they need help. Children can organize food or toy drives, and older youths can help out at local animal shelters, for example.

Bettina Adragna can be reached at 739-2220 or at badragna@

santamariatimes.com.

July 27, 2008