Rainy Day S.O.S. and Summer Family Fun Day

Home-made “Mad Libs” are crazy fun!

Due to our current high temperatures and drought-like conditions, a rainy day would be a welcomed event around here, but normally that’s not the case in the summer time.  I’m sure you can identify – rainy days in the summer often means restless children cooped up inside waiting for the sun to shine again, and endlessly complaining “I’m bored!” (Sound familiar?)

Though we didn’t have a rainy day, we’ve have several 100+ degree days in a row that mandated a little escape from the hot weather to check out the Rainy Day S-O-S Kit from Phase 4 Films that was chock full of ideas and activities to spend a fun, quality family fun day at home.

Phase 4 Films included their lineup of family-friendly films that are part of the Redbox Summer Family Fun program: I Heart Shakey, Rockstars, Space Dogs, Smitty, Kiara the Brave, My Friend Bernard, Freddy Frogface, and Donkey X. All films with fantastic learning opportunities for children and captivating storylines, simply perfect for watching on rainy day or viewing on your family movie night.

The Phase 4 Film folks aren’t just great at producing appealing characters and enchanting movies, they have some fabulous ideas for fun and easy home activities to keep little ones busy on a rainy day, or to make movie day/night special.  Suggestions include:

• creating your own crafting dough from scratch
• making your own “Mad Libs” stories with fill-in-the-blank placeholders 
• creating card castles with playing cards and challenging to see how big your castle can get before it falls
• setting up mock indoor tents with blankets and pills for a relaxing space

My rural boys were gung-ho to create a comfy indoor cavern (tent) for movie viewing time and we had loads of giggly fun creating our own “Mad Libs.”  If I didn’t know my boys were a little stuck on Star Wars before, I’m certainly convinced now.  Nouns offered were words like “Star Wars Lego III,” “Republic,” and “Obi Wan Kenobi.”  Verbs were “blast,” “light-saber,” (not really sure that’s a verb, but it was used repeatedly!) and “fly.” We had so much fun with this activity, it’s going to be a repeat regularly around our house.

Fort- check!  Popcorn – Check! Movie watching may commence!

We opted to watch “Smitty” first, which is a really heartwarming story about a thirteen-year-old, Ben, with a knack for trouble who is “sentenced” to spend the summer on his estranged grandfather’s farm.  Through the film, he learns some hard-knock lessons about the values of friendship, family, love, and responsibility. All the messages in this entertaining film were in line with our family key values, and one of the special touches I enjoyed was the message incorporated about pet adoption and how important a pet can be to a young boy and his family.  

Would you like to create your own rainy day summer family fun?  Redbox’s Summer Family Fun program makes it easy to find a family-friendly film at a Redbox location.  And in addition to providing quality entertainment at a super affordable rental price, from now through August, any time you rent a “Family Fun” movie from a Redbox location and enter an email address at checkout, you’ll be automatically entered into a sweepstakes for some super cool family prizes like a four day West Coast Princess Cruise for four or a seven day vacation for four to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida!  Now that would certainly be an amazing way to celebrate summer!

What activities will you add to your Rainy Day S.O.S. and Summer Family Fun day? 

Disclosure:  I received product and information from Phase 4 Films to help complete this activity.  All thoughts and opinions are that of Rural Mom.