Creative Date Night to Have With Your Kids

Ever since losing only child status 17 months ago, it’s been an obvious struggle for both Lulu and I to get enough time together. Usually it’s either shared with her brother or there’s a chore pulling my focus away.

I try to be mindful of setting aside purposeful time together where I can really spend time with her, but reality is that life gets busy and distractions are constantly vying for our attention. So when I heard about the Kids Night In subscription box, I had to give it a try!

Kids Night In

The concept behind Kids Night In is so fun. They send you a monthly box with activities included for you to have a date night with your kiddos! How sweet is that??

There is a different theme each month, and all the activities play into that theme. The only thing you really need to get yourself are the very basic ingredients for the easy recipe included for you and your child to do together. Everything else, down to the pencils or tape, is included!

I knew Lulu would be over the moon to have something to look forward to every month that is just for me and her. Last month was our first month trying it, and we have had a blast with both our August box and September box. I wanted to try it for a few months before giving a review on it, so I could get a better feel for what it’s all about and the quality.

I have to say, after these two months I am completely hooked and so impressed with how well thought out each box is. Having a date night with your kids is such a great idea, and these boxes really nail it! So, rather than talking about it in general form, here is our experience with our first two boxes with Kids Night In:

August Theme: Rise Up

Learning to Stand up to Bullies

This was such a great starter box for us! The playful part of the theme was superheroes. But the deeper lesson that was reinforced throughout the activities was to stand up to bullying.

I absolutely love that each month focuses on something more meaningful than simply playing together. After all, children learn primarily through play! So to have them exposed to important ideas in a fun way they can understand is pretty brilliant.

Each box comes with a bunch of activities to do together. We got to read the book, “How to Deal With Bullies Superhero Style”. It’s a cute story of a boy who turns into a superhero and saves the day when he sees someone being s bully. Lu has wanted to read it almost every day since we got it!

After we finished the book, we took those lessons and applied them to a little worksheet where she had to decide if something was a good or bad action. I read them to her of course, but she was actually able to come up with the right answers all on her own!

Make your Own Superhero Mask

Next, we got to Lu’s favorite part. She got to make a superhero mask and name tag, and then do a fun superhero course! She absolutely loves dressing up, so the superhero outfit was right up her alley.

I can’t tell you how many times she’s been excited to put on her mask and cape since we did this together! Those are always my favorite activities, ones that she can use or recreate over and over again. Plus it makes you feel like your money is being stretched even further, right?

Later on, we made the recipe that was included together. Superhero crêpes! We didn’t have any berries, so I made them into PB&J crêpes which the kids loved.

My favorite part was how much Lu was able to help, she did almost everything besides actually dealing with the crêpe while it was on the stove. While the crêpes were cooking, we made our own little superhero shrinky dink magnet which was so cool to watch! 

September Theme: Nutrition Explorers

Exploring Nutrition

This month we focused on nutrition. I loved seeing the ways they made it fun to learn about food! It’s really cool to have a resource that helps you teach positive habits in ways that you wouldn’t have thought of on your own.

The first thing we did was make a pair of binoculars to help us “explore”. This craft will definitely be used beyond our date night. Lu has already been asking to take her new binoculars outside!

She needed some help getting the initial base of the binoculars wrapped together, but did awesome at wrapping the purple ends on herself! As you can see in the picture below, she is now an officially certified nutrition explorer 🙂

Inspecting the Food Groups

After we finished with the binoculars and played with them a bit, we used them to inspect some stickers to decide what belonged in which food group. So simple, but stickers are my daughter’s love language, so she was ecstatic haha! We also used the binoculars to explore the kitchen and gather some food to see what we had of each food group.

Next we had an active game that was super fun! We used a fidget spinner as the “pointer” for the game. The spinner went in the center of the game, and we used it to spin and see what challenge we landed on.

The challenges included different workout activities such as jumping jacks, push ups, etc. This game made me realize that I’ve never really tried to do actual workouts with Lu before, because she had no clue how to do half of them! So it was a nice opportunity to teach her some healthy habits I may not have thought of otherwise. 

At this point we took a snack break with some veggie straws and read our book. I couldn’t believe how well laid out this book was, and how simply it explained nutrition in a way that even a preschooler could understand.

I feel like I even learned something from it! The cool part is now I have a resource that I can read to her repeatedly and use as encouragement when I want her to try something healthy.

Fruit and Veggie Art

We ended with some artwork, which is one of Lulu’s absolute favorite things in the world. We started with a rainbow sheet where she got to color in different lines of a rainbow. Food groups are usually associated with certain colors, so as she was drawing we connected which food group goes with which color.

We also drew different fruits and veggies on canvases. I drew the outline, and Lu got to fill them in. I always love to see how well she focuses at staying in the lines. We added some googly eyes, and now she has a new piece of artwork that she is super proud of!

The perfect date night with kids

Kids Night In has been such a fun experience for the two of us. It’s meant a lot to me to set aside this time with my girl. She looks forward to this every month now, and the best part is it encourages me to carve out more time for just the two of us.

It’s easy to let time slip away and always put something off until tomorrow. I’m so grateful for this little monthly reminder to spend some time with Lu individually, and the added bonus of the entire time being pre-planned by someone else is amazing. I mean really, they even include a snack! 

When days at home seem long, these little boxes full of fun are a perfect way to add some excitement! So what are you waiting for?! Head over to Kids Night In and snag your own date night boxes right now!

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