Family
Activity GUIDE
An assortment of creative games, adventures, craft ideas, and foodie fun to enjoy during this less-than-normal summer By Megan Kotelchuck As we go into summer, entertaining the kids needs to get a bit more creative day by day. We, at What’s Up? Media, have a tradition of “Guides” to help our readers, from the Home Resource Guide to our Summer Dining Guide, so why not add one more. Here is our first ever Family Activity Guide, to help manage the restlessness of staying at home during the coronavirus pandemic.
CARD GAMES Most households have a deck of cards, and there is an unlimited amount of games to play with them. Here are a few to get started with. Slapjack: 4–10 players: 1. Have everyone sit in a circle around a table or on the floor. Deal clockwise until you run out of cards. Everyone holds their cards facedown without looking at them. 2. Going around the circle, each player draws a card from the top of their deck and places that card in
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the center of the circle. Each player continues to place their cards in the center this way. 3. When a Jack card is turned face up, the goal is to be the first person to “slap” it, or cover it with your hand. If several people slap at once, the person whose hand is most in contact with the Jack adds all the cards to his or her pile. 4. If a player incorrectly slaps a card, he or she must give the top card in his or her pile to the player who placed the slapped card. That
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player adds the extra card to the bottom of his or her deck. 5. When a player runs out of cards, the player is out—unless he or she can slap a Jack laid by someone else. At that point, the previously “out” player is back in and can play with the cards collected from the pile. 6. Play continues until one person wins all of the cards. For a shorter version, stop play when the first person runs out of cards. Whoever has the most cards in his or her hand is the winner. Old Maid: 3-plus players: 1. Remove one Queen from the full deck. Deal the cards so that all cards have been handed out, players do not need to start with the same amount of cards. 2. Each player removes all pairs from his hand face down. If a player has threeof-a-kind, they remove only two of those three
cards. 3. The dealer then offers their hand, spread out face down, to the player on the left, who draws one card from it. This player discards any pair that may have been formed by the drawn card. 4.T he player then offers their own hand to the player on their left. 5. Play proceeds in this way until all cards have been paired except one—the odd queen, which cannot be paired—and the player who has that card is the Old Maid! Cheat: 2–10 players: 1. Use the whole pack of cards, deal out all cards to players, some may have more than others but that is okay. The object is to get rid of all of your cards. 2. To complete a turn, discard one or more cards face down on the pile calling out what you are putting down (2 Threes, or 3 Kings, etc.). The first player must discard Aces, the second player discards twos, the next player threes, and so on. Once the face cards have been gone through, start again at Ace. 3. Since the cards are being discarded face down, you do not actually have to discard what you say you are putting down, but you also can’t get caught lying by another player. You must play each turn. This means, if your turn makes you
put down Sevens but you don’t have any, you will be forced to play another card. 4. If another player suspects you are discarding the wrong cards, they will call out “Cheat.” This makes the cards challenged. Flip the cards and if the cards really were what you called out, the accuser picks up the whole discard pile. If the cards challenged are different from what was called out, the “cheat” takes the whole discard pile. 5. Play continues, the first player to get rid of all their cards and survive any challenge wins the game.
NEIGHBORHOOD ACTIVITIES We are all in this together, neighborhood by neighborhood. What is stopping you and the kiddos from going on a safari? Or going on a bear hunt? If we are going to be living like this, we need to get creative. Here are some neighborhood activities to keep the kids entertained and give parents a little something to do as well. Chalk Your Walk: Everyone loves sidewalk chalk, but an entire driveway of pictures may not be the mural you were looking for. Use painter’s tape to make the outline of whatever you would like, a star, a word, initials, get creative. Have the kids
