The Fun Friday Factor

As our school year started several years ago, I found our calendar swamped with fun activities.  Hikes, homeschool day at the zoo, special events at museums, tickets to a play…  Almost every Friday was booked with some activity or another.

Rather than trying to adjust my lesson plans to accommodate the occasional Friday at home, I decided to plan on four-day work weeks.  Any Friday that we were at home would be deemed a Fun Friday, a day for hauling out educational games, watching School House Rock or viewing favorite YouTube videos again (Periodic Table song, anyone?), working on puzzles, writing stories, playing math games on the computer or tablet, and accomplishing all those fun-but-time-consuming projects that never seem to fit into the regular work week.

Can you guess what day is my kids’ favorite weekday?  Everyone loves Fun Friday, and they enjoy it whether we’re on a field trip with friends (ah, those were the days!) or staying home and doing those bonus activities they treasure so much.  Now that they’re older, Fun Friday has morphed into something a little less playful, but it has kept its original feel.

What does a big-kid Fun Friday look like?

First we eat a special snack (s’mores, frosted brownie–something fun!) while holding our weekly Family Book Club meeting, at which we discuss a book that all of us are reading.  Next up is Science Lab, our weekly block for the hands-on discovery that is so important at every age.  (Thankfully, our science book includes LOTS of Investigations to keep us busy!)  I follow this up with an art project (KinderArt has great ideas for all ages!) and end with Logic and Critical Thinking time, during which the kids can choose to do one of an assortment of online games or do paper-and-pencil puzzles like Balance Benders, Sudoku, Code Breakers, and others.

Then while the kids eat lunch, they get to watch one or more interesting videos (depending on length): Mark Rober or Practical Engineering videos on YouTube and a wide variety of options on Disney+, BrainPop, and Curiosity Stream have been our choices so far.

After lunch we head to a greenspace for a couple of hours in the afternoon, weather permitting, to get in some all-important outdoor time.  I try to vary our destination so we don’t get tired of one place or one activity.  We rotate between places that allow us to go geocaching, play tennis or frisbee golf, explore wooded areas, splash in creeks, build elaborate sand villages, forage, and skate/bike.

Perhaps post-pandemic our Fun Fridays will be more varied, offering social opportunities and field trips once again, but for now we’re enjoying our weekly “fun work” and our mini-adventures to outdoor spaces we’ve never been (or haven’t visited for a long time).

Maybe your family would enjoy Fun Fridays, too!