Bring extra toys to playgrounds and events
It’s easier for one adult to sometimes bring interesting supplies for a lot of kids than for every family to remember their own. And kids have more fun with supplies that are new to them.
Buy sidewalk chalk in large packages, and bring a lot to the park. If other kids are still using it when we leave, often we just leave some of the chalk there; it’s cheap.
Buy a multipack of inflatable playground balls and leave one at the park every time you go. They’ll disappear after a while, but the local kids will get a lot of fun with a $3 ball first. (I only do this at fenced areas or areas far from a street; the temptation to follow a ball into the street is too great otherwise.)
Bring a bag of bubble supplies. My kit has some trays and bubble wands for younger kids, and wands and a bowl for giant bubbles. Not pictured: spray bottle of water and a rag for cleaning soap off hands afterwards.
At a weekend event we went to that had kids attending but wasn’t kid-focused, one family brought a basket of bubble wands, butterfly wings, and ribbon streamers. It was big joy for a dozen kids, and all the parents were grateful.
See also: a culture of park toys (balls, tricycles, etc) that live at the playground.
Recipes that are barely recipes
“Beans in a butter sauce” is nearly the only way my kids eat beans. It’s canned black beans, with the can juice, and some butter heated up together. You can send it in a thermos for lunch.
Chocolate peanut butter sauce: My kids are on the low-weight side and this is a quick, nutritious dessert. Melt peanut butter and chocolate chips (or any chocolate) together and stir. Also good with other nut butters, and on top of ice cream.
Teaching safety around high ledges
Maybe the scariest moment of my life was when we went with our kids to an old quarry, with a dropoff and icy water far below. Jeff showed our preschooler how to lie down on her belly and scoot up to look over the edge, so she wouldn’t lose her balance and fall. She did this fine, but when she was done looking she stood up right at the edge. We hadn’t taught her to scoot away from the edge before standing up.
Now I practice this with the kids in low-stakes settings: how to look over a steep drop by crawling to the edge, and then crawling backward before standing up.
Giant bubbles
Over the last few years we’ve had fun with giant bubbles.
There are many recipes on the web, but the serious bubble people are at the Soap Bubble Fandom. My favorite balance of quality-to-effort is this guar gum recipe. A simplified version of that recipe, makes 1 gallon:
- Water: 15 cups (3500ml)
- Guar gum: 1 tsp (5g)
- Rubbing alcohol: 2 tbsp (30ml) – for slurry. Exact amount and concentration isn’t important, just needs to dissolve the guar gum.
- Baking powder: 2 tsp (10g)
- Dish detergent: 9 tbsp “Dawn ultra” (130g) or a bit more if you want it stronger. Serious bubble people say the type of detergent matters a lot, but if you’re not trying for 15-foot bubbles it probably isn’t crucial.
- Make slurry: Mix guar gum + rubbing alcohol in small cup until smooth.
- Add to water: Pour slurry into water, stir 30 seconds
- Add detergent: Pour in gently, stir without creating foam
- Add baking powder: Mix by turning container end-over-end a few times
Wands: you can buy these or make them. You need some kind of stick (bamboo poles, chopsticks, etc) and some cotton string, rope, or strip of old cotton teeshirt. You can use a rubber band, duct tape, etc to hold the string on the end of the stick. You want one shorter side and one longer side to hang down. A weight on the bottom of the loop is optional. More instructions.
You hold one stick in each hand, dip the cord into the bubble liquid, lift the sticks up, and separate the sticks to spread the loop. Walk backwards if there isn’t much wind, and the bubble forms in front of you. Move the two sticks together, or swing the rope around, to close off the bubble.
It works better if you can keep the kids from swishing the wands in the liquid (you don’t want froth) and from getting a lot of dirt on the wands. Kids as young as 2 can use the wands.
You will immediately become the most popular family at a park, beach, or picnic if you bring stuff to make giant bubbles and let other people use it.