Some of my strongest childhood memories aren’t of expensive holidays, new toys or special events.
They’re little things.
A particular meal, a family joke, going somewhere together, something silly that happened one ordinary afternoon.
And now that I’m a mother, I’ve started thinking about this differently.
We spend so much time trying to give our children a good childhood.
We buy them things, enrol them in activities, plan birthday parties and sometimes feel guilty that we should be doing more.
But what if some of the memories our children carry into adulthood cost almost nothing?
You don’t need an expensive family holiday every school break to make childhood magical.
Sometimes all you need is an ordinary evening, a little imagination and your full attention.
So I’ve started collecting simple things I want to do with my own children—not just to entertain them, but to create the kind of family moments I hope they’ll remember when they’re grown.
Here are 25 free and cheap things to do with your kids to make unforgettable family memories.
25 Childhood Memories Your Kids Will Never Forget ❤️
1- Have a Living-Room Sleepover:
Forget the bedrooms for one night.Bring mattresses, pillows, sleeping bags and blankets into the living room. Make popcorn, choose a family movie and let everyone sleep together there.
The funny thing is that you’re still inside your own house—but to a child, changing where they sleep can turn an ordinary Friday night into an adventure.
Make it memorable: Take one photograph of everyone buried underneath the blankets before you go to sleep.
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2- Let Your Kids Plan a $10 Family Adventure:
Give the children a small budget and let them decide what to do with it.
Maybe they’ll buy ice creams and go to the playground. Perhaps they’ll choose snacks for a picnic. They might surprise you completely.
The limited budget is part of the fun. Instead of Mum planning another outing, the children become the planners.
For an entirely free version, give them a list of free choices and let them organise the afternoon.
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3- Go for a Torch Walk After Dark:
Take the same walk you might normally take during the daytime—but wait until dark and bring torches.
Look for the moon, listen for nighttime sounds and shine the torches safely along the path.
A familiar neighbourhood suddenly feels completely different.
Keep children close, choose a safe familiar route and use reflective clothing where appropriate.
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4- Have a “Yes Afternoon”:
For a few hours, let the children make the choices.
What should we play?
Where should we eat lunch?
Music or movie?
Garden or playground?
You still set the normal safety and family boundaries, obviously. The idea isn’t “Mum has surrendered all authority until bedtime.”
It’s simply giving children the unusual experience of leading the family for an afternoon.
And their choices may tell you quite a lot about what they genuinely enjoy doing with you.
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5- Recreate an Old Family Photo:
Find an old photograph of the children—or of the whole family—and recreate it.
Same positions. Similar clothes if possible. Same ridiculous facial expressions.
Do it again several years later and you’ll eventually have a little photographic timeline of your family growing up.
This could also become a lovely annual tradition.
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6- Make a Family Time Capsule:
Give everyone a few things to contribute:
- a drawing
- a family photograph
- a letter
- a list of current favourite things
- something representing the year
- predictions about the future
Write everyone’s ages and the date on the box, then decide together when you’ll open it.
You could even have each child write a letter to their future self.
Imagine opening it five or ten years later. ❤️
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7- Eat Dinner Somewhere Completely Unexpected:
Dinner doesn’t always need to happen around the dining table.
Have it on a blanket in the garden.
Set up a picnic on the living-room floor.
Eat underneath the dining table.
Take sandwiches to the park at sunset.
Children often remember the unusual setting far more than what was actually on the plate.
And yes, eating spaghetti underneath the table may make you question why you ever read this article. 😂
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8- Have a Backwards Day:
Breakfast for dinner.
Dessert first.
Pyjamas during the afternoon.
Read the bedtime story before dinner.
You don’t have to reverse an entire day. Pick three or four harmless things and announce that your family has temporarily forgotten how days are supposed to work.
Children love a little permitted silliness.
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9- Give the Kids a Photography Challenge:
You don’t need to buy them cameras. An old phone or camera you already own can work perfectly.
Give them challenges such as: “Photograph something beautiful.” “Find something tiny.” “Take the funniest photo you can.” “Photograph something that reminds you of our family.”
Then sit together afterwards and look at what everyone captured.
You may be surprised by what your children notice that adults walk straight past.
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10- Watch the Sunrise or Sunset Together:
There is something special about deliberately stopping to watch the sky change. Take blankets and hot chocolate outside for sunset, or wake older children early one morning and watch the sunrise together. No elaborate entertainment is required.
Just sit.
Talk.
Watch.
Sometimes slowing down is the activity.
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11- Camp in the Backyard:
If you already own a tent, pitch it in the garden. Bring sleeping bags, torches, snacks and stories. Look at the stars before bed.
No tent? Build an enormous indoor camp with blankets and chairs instead.
The important ingredient isn’t camping equipment. It’s making an ordinary night feel different.
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12- Start an Annual Birthday Interview:
This one costs absolutely nothing, and I think it could eventually become priceless. Every birthday, ask your child the same questions.
What’s your favourite food?
Who are your best friends?
What makes you happy?
What are you scared of?
What do you want to be when you grow up?
What’s your favourite thing to do with Mum or Dad?
What’s something you’re proud of?
Record their answers in a notebook or make a short video. Imagine hearing their answers change from age six to sixteen.
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13- Make a Family Treasure Hunt:
Hide a small surprise somewhere around the house or garden and create handwritten clues leading to it. The “treasure” doesn’t have to be something you’ve bought. It could lead to popcorn and a movie, their favourite dessert, a picnic you’ve prepared or even a note announcing the next family activity. The hunt is the exciting part.
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14- Let the Kids Be the Parents:
This could be the funniest—or most dangerous—idea on this entire list. 😂 For one hour, swap roles. The children are the parents.
They decide what game everyone plays, remind you to tidy up and perhaps tell you you’ve had enough screen time.
You may discover that your children have been collecting evidence against you for years. Just establish the rules before the coup begins. 😂
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15- Have a Family Cooking Challenge:
Choose a few ingredients you already have at home and see what everyone can create.
Older children can invent their own recipes while younger children can help mix, decorate or choose ingredients.
Another version is to let the children run a family restaurant: make menus, take orders, prepare simple food and serve the adults.
For younger children, baking something simple together works beautifully too.
You may want to have a look at this easy No-Egg Honey Biscuit Recipe.
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16- Have a “When I Was Little” Night:
Children know us as Mum and Dad. Sometimes they forget that we were children once too. Tell them about:
- Your first day at school.
- Your childhood friends.
- Something naughty you did.
- A time you got into trouble.
- Your favourite toy.
- What your bedroom looked like.
Then let them ask questions. You don’t need photographs or props. Your stories are enough. And one day, those stories may become part of the family history they tell their own children.
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17- Make a Family Movie:
Write the world’s most ridiculous five-minute movie. Choose characters, find costumes around the house, make props from cardboard and film everything on your phone.
Don’t worry about making it polished. In fact, twenty years from now, the terrible acting may be the best part. 😂 Screen-free creative play can also extend far beyond this one idea.
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18- Have a Pretend Power-Cut Night:
Turn off the main lights for an evening and pretend the electricity has disappeared. Use torches or other safe lighting, play games, tell stories and eat simple snacks.
Keep necessary appliances running—you don’t actually need to recreate a blackout. 😂 The point is simply to remove the normal evening routine and make everyone interact differently.
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19- Go on a Mystery Adventure:
You don’t necessarily need a destination. Pack drinks and snacks and go exploring somewhere safe you haven’t visited before.
Alternatively, write several free destinations on pieces of paper—a playground, library, walking trail, beach, park—and let a child draw one from a jar. Your own town may contain dozens of places your children have never explored.
Current Australian family guides similarly emphasise playgrounds, libraries, nature walks, museums and other free local outings as inexpensive ways to spend family time.
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20- Have a Childhood Favorites Day:
Let each child choose one of their favourite things, and build a simple day or afternoon around them.
Ask them:
- What’s your favourite breakfast?
- What’s your favourite game?
- What’s your favourite song?
- What’s your favourite place to go that’s free?
- What’s your favourite thing to do with me?
Then try to fit several of their answers into one day.
You might eat pancakes for breakfast, blast their favourite song in the car, visit their favourite playground and finish the afternoon playing the game they always ask you to play.
Take a few photos and write down their answers somewhere.
The lovely part is that you can repeat this a few years later and see how much they’ve changed.
Make it a tradition: Call it “Sarah’s Favourite Day,” “Deyaa’s Favourite Day,” etc. Each child gets their own day once a year.
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21- Do a Secret Family Kindness Mission:
Choose someone who could use a little happiness and do something kind without expecting anything back.
- Leave a handwritten note.
- Bake something for a neighbour.
- Help somebody with their garden.
- Donate toys you’ve outgrown.
- Leave flowers for someone.
- Feed a homeless.
Children may remember how it felt to make somebody else happy.
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22- Create a Family Memory Jar:
Keep a jar somewhere everyone can reach, with little pieces of paper nearby.
Whenever something funny, lovely or memorable happens during the year, write it down with the date and put it in the jar.
It doesn’t need to be a major event, something like:
- “Lara called the broccoli a tiny tree.”
- “We got completely soaked at the park.”
- “Deyaa scored his first goal.”
- “Sarah made everyone laugh at dinner.”
Then choose one night at the end of the year, empty the jar and read all the memories together. Children could also draw their memories instead of writing them.
Cost: practically nothing.
Potential value years later: enormous. ❤️
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23- Go Outside in the Rain_On Purpose:
Provided the weather conditions are safe, put on raincoats and gumboots and go looking for puddles. Children spend so much time being told:
“Don’t get wet!”
“Don’t jump in that!”
“Watch your shoes!”
Occasionally saying “Go for it!” can transform an ordinary rainy afternoon. Then come home, change into warm clothes and make something warm to drink.
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24- Create One Strange Family Tradition:
Traditions don’t have to come from books or holidays. Invent your own.
Maybe the first warm evening of summer means eating dinner outside.
Maybe every birthday morning starts with the same silly song.
Maybe once a year everyone sleeps in the living room.
Maybe the last day of school means ice cream for dinner.
The stranger and more specific it is to your family, the more likely your children are to say one day: “Do you remember how we ALWAYS used to…?” That’s exactly what we’re trying to create.
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25- Take Each Child on a One-on-One Date:
This might be my favourite. When you have more than one child, family time and individual time aren’t quite the same thing. Occasionally take one child somewhere alone. It doesn’t have to cost much or anything.
- Go to the library.
- Walk around the neighbourhood.
- Garden together.
- Take a snack to the park.
- Get one inexpensive drink and sit somewhere talking.
Let them choose. For an hour, they don’t have to compete with siblings for your attention, they simply get you. And perhaps that’s the real theme behind this entire list.
The Best Childhood Memories Don’t Have to Be Expensive:
I don’t think children need us to constantly entertain them. And I don’t think creating a wonderful childhood means filling every weekend with expensive activities.
Sometimes the thing that turns an ordinary day into a memory is simply that something was different, and we were fully there for it.
● A mattress appeared in the living room.
● Mum jumped in the puddle too.
● Everyone ate dinner underneath the table.
● We watched the sunset.
● We made a terrible movie.
● We talked for an hour.
That’s the part I want to remember as I work through this list with my own children.
I’ll also be adding photographs and little updates as we try some of these ideas ourselves, because I don’t want this to be just another list of family activities on the internet. I want it to become our family’s list too.
And if you’re reading this, choose just one idea. Don’t wait until you have the perfect free weekend.
Pick something simple and do it. Years from now, you may be surprised by which ordinary afternoon your child remembers.
More Free & Fun Things to Do With Kids:
If you’re looking for even more ways to spend quality time together, explore:
100+ Fun Outdoor Summer Activities for Kids
30+ Screen-Free After-School Activities
Sensory Play for Toddlers: 25+ Fun & Easy Activities
Toddler Activities 12–18 Months
Toddler Activities 18–24 Months