90s Day
/This spring was pretty rough. I suddenly had to convert to online teaching while completing webinars to learn how to do that and helping my own children with their distance learning. It was a lot. I had a hard time finding a way to juggle everything and my kids needed extra attention. I decided to set aside Fridays for some fun activities. In my mind, it sounded fantastic! However, my children vary widely in their ages and enthusiasm levels, depending on the activity. We began calling it Forced Family Fun Friday. Catchy, right?!?
I thought perhaps the creative details of these “fun” days might be helpful to those who have themed birthday parties and such. Since I was basically in survival mode for a few months, I definitely didn’t have the time, energy, or ambition to blog about them at the time. If you have read my blog before, you might notice that my posts are usually published when I get around to it, not necessarily when they are relevant. The pictures I took are sporadic and possibly old, cheap cell phone camera quality. No apologies. I did my best with what I had each week.
I started out with “90s Day” but it actually turned into two days. It is a long story. To start us off, I found a 90s music playlist on Spotify (which the kids hated and I found myself having to censor- I forgot how bad they were!) We began our activities by splattering brightly colored paint on an old, white sheet. We just dipped paintbrushes in cups of paint and flung the paint onto the sheet! It was fun, except some of the kids didn’t hear me specify to wear old clothes and the dog also ran through the line of fire. Oops!
I also taught them how to play MASH:
Draw a square and write M A S H at the top (which stands for mansion, apartment, shack, and house) to see what kind of home you will live in when you grow up.
Draw four lines on the remaining sides and assign categories for details about your potential adult life. We kept it simple- career, place, and pet, although we added other categories sometimes. (I just like to stay away from the “who you will marry” category because I don’t want any of us thinking about that anytime soon!) You can also add 8 lines on each side if you want to make more categories.
Have another person make tally marks in the center of the square while you, with closed eyes, say “go” and “stop.” Count the tally marks and then, starting at the “M” and going clockwise, count to that number, crossing off the word or letter that you end with. Repeat until there is only one option left in each category.
It is just for fun and the results are silly. I usually like to add in one ridiculous option to each category or let the other person come up with something terrible.
I also found a cute, free printable for a slightly different version HERE.
One of my very favorite childhood crafts was Shrinky Dinks! Naively anticipating lots of free time, I ordered shrink plastic sheets from Amazon the day after PA schools closed, along with several other craft supplies. We just looked online for images to copy on paper, then traced them onto the shrink plastic. You can also trace coloring book pages. We found that Posca pens worked best for making these. Sharpies made them a bit translucent.
We also made beaded lizard key chains with cotton hand quilting thread, key loops, and seed beads. We sealed the knots on the ends with fray check. Some of the kids loved making these and some didn’t.
I also printed out coloring pages with some 90s cartoon characters- Shera, Rainbow Brite, Lady Lovely Locks, and Care Bears- for the kids to color while I prepared other activities. We watched a 90s movie- Hook (which I think everyone seemed to like.) Finally, we ended with a photo booth using the sheet we splattered as a backdrop and some props that I made with card stock and a black Sharpie. Of course, by then it was dreary and raining so we didn’t get great pictures, but it was fun all the same.
Overall, I enjoyed the chance to wear neon clothes and rock a crimped, side ponytail, but my kids were not impressed. I guess that makes me old and uncool. Whatever! Even if they won’t admit it, I think they all had at least a little bit of fun.
