Ideas to Do Something with an Almost 5Yr Old Boy

Cooking is great to do together. I taught my kids fractions by doubling a banana bread recipe (draw a pie chart). Story time at the library is always fun. www.familyfun has great ideas for birthday parties of all ages as well as fun projects such as creating things with recyclable materials, etc. The family fun website also has great ideas for Halloween costumes (even no-sew ones). You could get a jump on that together. Other birthday party ideas would be Hubbard Family Swim School. They have fun parties there. We invited whole families so that the parents could be in the water with the kids if they couldn't swim yet. Oasis gymnastics has fun birthday parties too - and the kids get worn out ! You could have a party at the park - find some great games on the Family Fun website. Have fun!

Here are a few ideas to do with your 5 year old son:

-Take him on a Bike Ride
-Take him to the Park and maybe have a picnic there
-Rent a movie and have movie night
-Go to the Library
-Go on a short walk
-Take him to a skate park to watch the older kids
-Play video games or computer games or board games
-Take him to the pet store to look at all of the animals
-Go buy some cheap craft items from the dollar store (or Michaels)and make up some cool crafts you can make together
-Help him make a little dirt track in the yard to race his cars/trucks around on
-Make a "fort" in the living room or his bedroom for him to play in (I remember doing this as a kid with the cushions from the couch and blankets and pillows)

For his birthday party, have him choose a theme that he likes and do everything at the party around the theme. You can search online to find games/food/decorations that fit your theme. Lets say he chooses Superman as his theme. Go to google and type in Superman party ideas and you will find tons of ideas. Good luck!

My wife takes our son on picnics in the park about once a month or so. This can be as simple as a couple of sandwiches, some fruit, some drinks (water/juice box), a blanket and some time alone. This is great for them and it's very cost efficient.

I just took my son to a local $1 movie theatre this afternoon. He loved the movie and ended up in my lap for over 1/2 of the movie. He laughed a lot and had a great time.

Along the same lines as a movie, check out redbox.com (here is map for the ones in Phoenix, http://j.mp/17zbIS); you can rent movies from them for about $1 per night. Pop some popcorn and you two could snuggle up on the couch together.

I hope these ideas help.

For a Birthday party idea, and this is what I'm going to do for my son who's about to turn five as well, is throw a party for him and his friends and make it a theme party to where all his little friends comes as their favorite "super hero, or character". You can have water balloons, bubbles, and cake and icecream and the kids will have a blast! :-) Keep it simple for them.

For things to do, I read with my son, practice letters and numbers, and he can write Hi and MoM too. :-) Play cars with him....I was a tom boy as a kid myself so playing cards is no big deal to me. LOL You can play hide and seek, play outdoor games with him. You can have him help you cook. My son loves to help with what I allow him to do, with me in the kitchen. I let him pour stuff into pots or bowls, stir, crack eggs..he loves to crack eggs.....color with him, draw with him...do finger paints...these are just some ideas for you. Hope this helps. Have fun! :-)
G.

Try parks and rec they have art classes for kids and the parents need to be there to help. My son loved it. It was about $40 for 8 or 10 classes.

Also library times those are free and they sing, dance and sometimes have a project after.

Going to the park just gets you out of the house and you take lunch and have a picnic.

Sitting and playing playdough with my kids is always a big hit.

Hit Jo Ann's or Michael's sale racks and buy some art supplies. I have popsicle sticks and stickers. My son, 4, and I will make puppets and then put on goofy shows for each other. It always surprises me what he will think up. And it's nice for me to take time out to be goofy right along with him. And if you stay away from paints, clean up is real easy and the supplies can cost less than 5$ and last forever!!

Hello.
The first Saturday of each month Home Depot offers a free Kids Workshop. There is usually a sign up sheet, so you might check out the store nearest you. Also, Lowe's offers a Children's Clinic. You can sign up on their website www.lowes.com. I believe sign up is located in the "clinics" section, down at the bottom of the home page. Lowe's clinics are usually the second Saturday a month and sometimes they have a second project the 4th weekend. Both Home Depot and Lowe's offer these "clinics" for free. They give you a pre-packaged "project" with the instructions, and provide tools, glue and sandpaper to complete the project at the store. Projects vary. My son and I have built a boat, a birdhouse, a gift box for Valentine's day, a toy racetrack, etc. In either case, fun and free.

Hope I've been of some help. Good luck.

I have always made it a daily priority to have story time with my kids. Not only does having them sit close and discuss what's going on in a story promote bonding, but it is so helpful when it comes to school readiness. I know that your educational background has taught you how important that is, but it has always helped me stay close to my kids. My son loves to go to the library and pick out "new" books each week(which of course is free).

Hi S.. I just wanted to share something with you that we have recently stumbled upon and the best part is, they are FREE! On the first Saturday of each month Home Depot has a kids workshop from 9-12. The kids get to make a craft (with wood, hammer and nails, the whole 9!), they get their very own Home Depot apron, and a pin to put on their apron when they have completed their project. It's pretty cool. This weekend they made a bean bag toss. It doesn't cost a thing, you don't have to preregister and you can just show up anytime in the time frame. It's something kinda fun and different to do together. The Lakeshore Learning Store in Ahwatukee also has children's crafts every Saturday. You can see more on that at their website www.lakeshorelearning.com. Hope this gives you a couple ideas. Have fun! :)

How about the Arizona Museum for Youth in Mesa? It doesn't cost much to get in or you could get a Culture Pass from the Chandler library and get in for free. Have fun!

When my boys were young we used to go camping a lot.... sometimes it was only in the back yard but it works.

Another thing we did was set up boxes to show off our rocks. We would look for them everywhere, and when we bring them home we would find out what kind of rock it was, put it in our box that we made to show them off and label them.

We also spent an enormous time at the YMCA, they have scheduled activities and work on a sliding scale if your finances are tight. It was a great place for us with the pools and weekly movie night with a video and popcorn.

Have fun :)

at this age my kids loved cards, go fish, old maid, memory. Building legos, playing with water guns or water balloons. There is also a game called chairs; my kids loved to see who could stack the little chairs the highest before they came crashing down. I think it will be special if you spend the time with him, find out what he plays with and enjoys the most and then play that with him. And of course hide and seek is always fun for the kids even as teens they like it. I think the science ideas are very good too. We did the Home Depot or Lowe's workshops too, my kids loved them, get there early though they get busy. Oh, and of course anything art/play dough related my kids loved. We even made our own playdough you can look up a recipe online. Once my son and I make brownies - we took a recipe and changed it to create our own thing and he loved it and talked about it for awhile.

It's great you are wanting the bonding time!
Take care,
K.

I just had my son's birthday party at a firestation. It was great! The kids had a blast and it doesn't cost alot!

I have a four year old boy. He loves science, especially the science that gets you messy. I just got this great book from the library called "super science concoctions" and it has household items that you mix together to learn about science. We had fun (without baby brother) and got totally messy and bonded.

We also made robots out of cardboard boxes and foil, pipecleaners and hot glue as decorations for his birthday party. R2D2 cake, transformer pinata, etc... It was fun making the robots and being a little crafty, plus they were cute decorations. He was very proud of them.