Get the box of chalk out and start drawing on the sidewalk with the kids. You don’t have to be a great artist to do this one. The kids sure won’t care. You can always sweep it away if you don’t like how your work turned out.

If you’re in an area without sidewalks, you may have a driveway or walkway up to your home that can be used.

You could also just try drawing a game on the ground. Kids love hopscotch, and what’s more classic than a chalk hopscotch game?

You probably enjoyed making paper airplanes as a kid. Why not go at it again with the whole family?

If you don’t remember how to fold a paper airplanes, there are online instructions to make a variety of planes, from simple to more complex.

It’s also a great way to reuse paper, so long as it’s still in good shape. Or the kids can decorate the paper before or after folding.

Kids are likely to enjoy competing with their planes, seeing whose plane can fly the longest, highest or whatever. If you’re worried about things being knocked over by paper airplanes or (more likely) over exuberant children chasing after their planes, make sure you send them outside to fly the planes.

It’s that time of year again. The kids are heading back to school, or maybe off to school for the very first time.

Rather than suggest a new activity this week, I’m going to say look at the things you meant to get done as a family over the summer. The fun stuff. Get going while there’s still time!

Free Fun Fridays are back!

Plan a family treasure hunt. The parents or one of the older kids can write clues or draw a map, and set things up. Everyone else gets to try to find the treasure.

If one of the kids is hiding the remote control, you might just get some desperate treasure hunters!

Kidding, folks, kidding. The house gnomes are really the ones who hid the remote. Kids, don’t hide the remote. Not only does it annoy parents, it makes it harder for you to watch TV!

Depending on ages and interest level, each clue can lead to a prize and a new clue or just a new clue. The early, easier to find prizes should be pretty basic.

Treasure hunts can be indoors or outdoors, although pirate-loving children may well want to be allowed to dig for the final treasure… or at least mine would.

I just realized that I’ve been doing this Free Fun Fridays thing for over a year now. Not quite 52 posts of it, as I wasn’t too regular at first, but still quite a number of posts.

This week’s suggestion I can’t believe I haven’t made before. Read together.

With younger kids, you can read to them. If they know the story from having it read so often, encourage them to fill in the lines by pausing at points you think they know.

Take turns reading with older kids. It can be sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph or page by page, depending on what you think will work for your child’s skills.

One of the fun things about taking a family walk is all the leaves and such you can find. Take advantage and make a collage when you get home.

You can think of different themes or just do a “stuff we found” collage. Maybe look for seeds, or different kinds of leaves.

This can be a great way to encourage the entire family to pay attention to what’s around them as you walk. Not to mention that younger children in particular love making crafts.

Cultural centers and festivals are available in most cities and can be quite a bit of fun. While it’s easy to spend money at some events, there’s generally things you can do for free as well.

You may get to listen to the music of a particular culture or see traditional dances. You could learn a traditional art or craft.

This can be a great chance to talk about your own family’s cultural heritage or introduce the kids to a new one.

Ever wonder how things are made? Well, you can watch the TV show How It’s Made, or try seeing it in real life.

Many factories have free or low cost tours available to the public. There’s even a website, Factory Tours USA to help you find factory tours in your area.

A personal favorite is going to the Tillamook cheese factory up in Oregon. It’s a pretty simple, self guided tour. Sometimes they even have cheese tasting going on, and the ice cream shop there is dangerously good.

Many libraries now don’t just have books available to be checked out. They have movies too. Not the selection you’ll get from Netflix, certainly, but probably a pretty fair selection.

Some libraries do currently charge a check out fee, so you will have to ask. The fee may also be waived on educational movies. Not all branches even within a particular system may have the same fees on movies.

Many libraries loan books between branches, so find out about inter-library loans if the movie you want isn’t at the one nearest you. They may be able to get it within a few days.

As the weather gets better, but not so hot as it will be during the summer, now is the perfect time for family hikes. In some places wildflowers are blooming, making now a truly beautiful time to get out there.

Take your usual basic precautions. Sunscreen. Good hiking/walking shoes. Wear a hat and sunglasses. Carry water.

When we go hiking we give our kids whistles. That allows them to get our attention if they get separated from us. Hasn’t happened yet, but it’s a nice precaution.