As the cold weather and holiday season sets in, many of us will be spending a lot of time with multi-generational family members and friends, celebrating and enjoying seasonal foods. Being prepared to explore and enjoy new things together can be a lifesaver, especially when the children are getting bored, Black Friday isn’t your thing or Uncle Fester decides to launch into a lecture on the current state of the world.
Here are a few ideas for engaging the festive group in environmentally sensitive activities that everyone can participate in.
Bird identification competition:
Easy: Put together teams of two or three people of different ages to spend 15 minutes identifying birds at your bird feeder(s). Start the game by showing adults or older children how to use the Merlin app from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, or give each team a bird identification book (hint: your local library may have books to check out). Provide paper and pens for tracking their finds. Prepare an award made from recycled materials to give to the winning team.
Advanced: Plan to visit a park or nature area nearby with identification apps or books and set a time limit for each team to identify as many birds as possible.
Alternative: Include identification of animals in the game.
Recycled Art Projects:
People of all ages can enjoy art projects made with a diverse collection of materials on their way to being recycled. Collect used wrapping paper, bottle caps, plastic bottles, newspaper (especially Sunday comics), fabric scraps, colorful magazines, packing peanuts, natural materials like pine cones, acorns and leaves, and set them out on a table with scissors, paper bags, markers, crayons, stencils, paints, glue, tape, cardboard boxes and whatever else you think will be of interest. Urge everyone to use their imagination and make a collage, a wreath, or wearable art of some sort. If possible leave these materials out during the entire event so people can return and keep at it. At the end of the party, plan to take votes on the best art by age group and post the winning pieces on social media.
Lots of websites have creative ideas including these:
- Crafting a Green World
- Recycle Rally
- Detroit group reduces waste and improves education by merging art and science
- Recycled Craft Ideas for Earth Day
Telling Stories:
Gatherings with family and friends often get into a rut with the same stories being told over and over again. Ironically, we will miss some amazing stories about those close to us because we don’t ask the right questions. Prepare a list of questions to be shared among your guests that they can ask each other to draw out seldom-told stories. Here are some examples of questions to consider asking.
Playing Word Games:
Board and card games are fun, but you don’t need to have anything other than a good imagination and sense of humor to play a lot of word games. Here are some ideas for games that can require only a pen and paper. A lot more can be found at this website.
- Fictionary or the Dictionary Game: Players guess the definition of an obscure word that one player has picked out of the dictionary. Each player makes up their own definition and everyone votes for what they think is the correct one. More details here.
- Limericks: The participants jointly write limericks one line at a time, and then enjoy reading the final poems out loud.
- GHOST: This spelling game includes everyone who is reading well enough to know how to spell simple words. One person says a letter, the next adds a letter that can be used in a word, and so on. After three letters, a person whose letter spells a complete word is given a “G”, and spelling begins again. When someone has gotten GHOST, they drop out of the game, until only one person remains who becomes the winner.
The bottom line is to be creative this holiday season as you spend time with friends and family. The memories of what you learned, the fun and the competition will linger long after the dinner is over and presents are put away.