Whether you’re taking your family out for a day trip, or just staying home on a rainy afternoon, finding good family activities to please everyone can be a challenge for any parent. But with a little creativity, and the willingness to reach out for some clever and classic family activity ideas, you’ll be making great memories in no time and watching the hours fly by as you, your partner and your kids have an amazing time.

At first I couldn’t quite believe that it would be so easy to come up with a variety of great family activity ideas (especially ones that work on a budget), but now I realize there’s no end of fun and entertaining things to do, even at a moment’s notice. There are dozens, or more, blogs and web pages for parents like me who are looking for some clever new ways to spice up your family’s activity time. There are some pages that focus on family activity ideas for the great outdoors, and others for family evenings when you all want to stay in for the night.

I love to play simple and classic active games like hopscotch and stickball. They don’t require a lot of fancy sporting equipment, and they can be good for hours of fun! Plus I love experimenting with family activity ideas where we make up our own house rules and variations that can become totally new games that are fun to play again and again. Freeze tag is still one of my favorites, although I certainly can’t take the credit for this family activity idea from my own childhood.

I’ve even figured out some really “practical” family activity ideas, too, like turning housecleaning chores into a playful game where everybody’s suddenly having fun, and still cleaning! And of course there are some common family activity ideas like playing simple card games or board games, or having a family movie marathon with titles that the kids like, but so do I. And I love doing art and craft projects with my kids, and my spouse likes to get into it, too!