With the age of technology, social factors like increased prices of real estate and living costs, we have seen various factors affecting families around the country and their lifestyles. Most commonly both parents spend most of their time working, including some weekends, when they arrive late home late in the evening, and some of them have second and third jobs, to afford their house, food and clothes for them and their children, they are too tired to do anything with their kids. In the meantime, children are seen spending more and more time on entertainment media. Apart from playing games on their gadgets, as well as on the computer, they spend a lot of time on the Internet, either browsing through websites or on the social media. It has been estimated that on average children in the USA alone spend up to 45 hours a week in front of their computer or gadgets’ screens. While it does keep them occupied, since the parents otherwise usually don’t have the luxury to fill in that free time, there are numerous cons of such behavior. Trying to spend time with your children doing some fun activities together is a solution to not only socialize with them, but to spend much-needed time out of the house, away from computers. If you cannot do that every weekend, at least every other week dedicate a full day to family time with your children, they need it as much as you do. Here are 5 fun weekend family activities that you can do:

1.     Volunteer

Volunteering for a charity event or organization is a great way to spend time with others, socialize with those who need help, or dedicate time to doing something useful for the society. This can be from taking care of the elderly in a local retirement home, to helping out at a garage sale and more. Ask some government organizations in your area for ideas, there are plenty of places that need volunteers. Not only will you spend time with your children, but it will also teach them to take care of others, consider what useful things they can do to the community and mercy on those that need help.

 2.     Organise a treasure hunt

Organizing a fun outdoor activity like a treasure hunt is very exciting. While you can research and get ideas from the Internet, organizing it can take some time, but the result will be worth it. Not only is this activity a lot of fun for the children, who are curious by nature, but it will teach them to be creative, think, evaluate ‘evidence’ and clues and find solutions. Adults are more than welcome to join in the hunt or in helping and watching the children.

3.     Camping with other families

Camping has been one of the favorite activities of children of various ages for decades. There is nothing like spending time outdoors in the wild, learning to co-exist with other creatures and being far from civilization, even if it is for a couple of days. When going camping, invite other families with children, so the kids can socialize and you will have company. Make sure you bring all the required supplies and equipment.  While previously camping could have been difficult, nowadays there are amazing things such as inflatable comfortable tents, survival supply sets and more. What about finding the best camping stove that can turn your camping experience into a culinary one as well?

4.     Visit a museum

While many kids find visiting a museum a boring activity, nowadays there are a lot of fantastic multimedia museums that use new technologies in teaching the visitors about nature, science and history. Oftentimes these museums use games to engage the young visitors in educational processes that would otherwise be seen as dull.

 5.     Plant something

It is no secret that due to the cutting of trees we are facing many environmental issues. While deforestation is something that we, as individuals cannot stop, there are things that we can do, to help our Earth, and that is planting! Be it a small tree in your community garden, or new flowers in your backyard, it is something that you can do with your children. It will teach them to care about the environment, as well as appreciating nature’s beauty.