Thrifty Family Fun

On any given evening you can usually find five or more families in the parking lot near our local airport. They've all come to watch the planes take off and land. People bring picnic lunches, and in recent years the area has been landscaped and picnic tables have been added.

We've been regulars there for a few years -- I can now tell the difference between a Huey and an F28, for example. My son could tell you a lot more than that, but educational value aside, plane spotting is an interesting, inexpensive activity we can do together when we just need to do something.

So family entertainment doesn't have to mean an expensive trip to the nearest theater or theme park.

To be perfectly honest, plane spotting wasn't even my idea. In fact it probably would never have occurred to me, and when my husband first suggested it, I think I may have even given him the look. But we are now dedicated plane watchers, and we sometimes make that trip to airport a couple of times week.

Even if you don't have an airport nearby, there could be other low-cost family entertainment options in your area that you've been missing out on.

When my son was younger, we used to walk a few blocks to a fairly busy street near us. The local gas station there had kindly added a picnic table to their landscaping efforts, and we would sit and watch all the cars and trucks go by. Right now there seems to be a lot of road and building construction in our neighborhood, and I often see a local mom out walking with her toddler, who is fascinated by all the big machines.

What seems mundane to us adults can be new and exciting to a child; think like a kid for a minute and see if you can find the fun potential in any of these activities:

• If you usually drive, next time you have an outing take a bus or other public transportation instead. Instead of concentrating on the road, you can talk to the kids. You may also be able to combine your outing with a brief walking tour of a different neighborhood.

• Visit parks and playgrounds that are outside of your usual stomping grounds.

• Treasure hunts and scavenger hunts are lots of fun. As a kid, I remember visiting a cousin who lived on a farm. Our moms hid some old pennies in the dirt, made a map and told us it must have belonged to an old hermit. It was so exciting to find a penny! Took me years before I figured out just how smart our moms really were.
  The copyright of the article Thrifty Family Fun in Thrifty Living is owned by Donna Dunn. Permission to republish Thrifty Family Fun in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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