Families have plenty of ways to have fun around town. (See our last article on family fun, “Stay together, play together,” on July 27.)

But staying home has its advantages, too. Spending some time in a room with your family can save money on gas and the cost of paying someone else to entertain you. It can also reinforce bonding, and if you invite your children’s friends, you can get to know them better —always a good idea.

Here’s a game plan — go!

Start the day with a pancake breakfast. Kids love making biscuits and getting messy in the kitchen. An older child

can make scrambled eggs,

and another child can make fruit smoothies.

Go through the closet and pull out some old board games you haven’t played in years.

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Newer board games can be fun, as well. Wits and Wagers, produced by North Star Games, is an easy-to-learn game that can be played by four to 20 people. Players guess the answers to trivia questions and get points by placing bets on the winning answer (not necessarily their own).

Buy it at hobby stores or and major online retailers. The suggested retail price is $29.99. If a family of four plays it three times, that’s about $2.50 per player, per game.

You can also get a “Hoyle’s Rules of Games” book and a few packs of cards. You’ll be set for months.

For some more active mid-morning fun, play yard games like Red Light/Green Light or Hide and Seek.

At lunchtime, make tuna salad sandwiches or grill some hot dogs in the backyard.

Have a tea party in the afternoon, with herbal tea, stuffed animals and crackers. If the kids think tea parties are for sissies, do some gardening instead.

At dinner time, make a simple meal, like pasta. One child can make the sauce, another can boil the pasta, and someone else can make garlic bread.

Make chocolate chip cookies after dinner. Check out Snopes.com’s Web page on the “Neiman Marcus Cookie” for a recipe. Don’t let the recipe’s origin in urban legend deter you — it’s actually quite good. Here’s the direct link, www.snopes.com/business

/consumer/cookie.asp.

More ideas

If there’s a big group, have two or three games or activities going at once so children can pick.

Set up a tent for children or parents who want to have some quiet time.

Assign rules during activities, such as “if you throw something on the floor, you have to pick it up,” to keep things sane.

Blow bubbles in the backyard.

Collect flower petals or leaves and put them in a thick book between printer paper to flatten them. You can later buy inexpensive frames at a secondhand store and frame them.

Look through some old family photo albums.

Get a book of scripts from the library and perform a play. Use old clothes or Halloween accessories as costume pieces.

Build a fort out of chairs and blankets. (This can serve as a set for those plays, too.)

Make Christmas cards or Christmas tree decorations out of cardboard, construction paper, glue, paint and glitter. Who says you can’t get it done early this year?

Hold a puppet show with puppets made of popsicle sticks and glue.

Have a glamour night. Get drugstore makeup, do each other’s nails and experiment with hairstyles.

Have a garage sale. Kids can get old toys or clothes, sort them, and price them with dot-shaped stickers.

Make countdown chains. Cut strips of construction paper and glue the ends together to make links. As a holiday approaches, you can cut off a link and see how many days are left until the big day.

Make collages out of cut-up magazine images and glue.

Teach your old dog new tricks.

Make play-dough.

Bead.

You can rent videos, but you can be more creative than that, can’t you? Mix it up a little and get a dance instruction video instead of a movie.

When the day is over, take a nice long bubble bath and rest in the knowledge that the kids just might be too tired to cause trouble tonight.

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

September 14, 2008