April Fool's Day Fun

Ideas for fun with April Fools’ Day – including ideas from Ladies Home Journal’s article, “OMG, LOL”

Pull some pranks Suggested tips included rigging a “dancing” dollar bill with fishing line, sneaking a plastic spider onto someone’s dinner plate, tinting mayonnaise green or putting a raisin “bug” in the tootpaste tube. There are a lot of nice fun pranks that can be pulled and it can be fun to plan with family members to “get” someone. As the article pointed out, boundaries should be set so that the pranks stay fun for everyone involved. A fun thought would be to mix jokes with service for others such as making some of the faux food recipes and take it over to a neighbor (especially someone who could use a laugh or some company)

Hold a Stand-UP Turn your living room into an amateur stand-up night – no hecklers allowed. Suggestions included borrowing joke books from the library or visiting sites like kids.yahoo.com/jokes. This would be a fun time for family members to show off talents and see a side of each other that they may not see too often – with special emphasis on having positive feedback only.

Put on a Funny Family Film Fest They recommended introducing funny movies that you enjoyed growing up or ones that either have special meaning for you or a family member (that was connected to a certain time in someone’s life or had a moral that had great meaning or impact – yes there are very good morals in some comedies). This could be made more significant if there was some discussion about why a specific movie was chosen and what the significance is to you.

Be Spontaneous Start a family [improvisational] night. Write down some silly scenarios (you’re stuck in an elevator with a monkey for instance) on slips of paper, break up into teams. Take turns using props from around the house to act out these things. Another fun spontaneous game is to re-write a popular story. Split up in teams of two. Have copies of a popular fairytale with a twist. Throughout the story replace numerous nouns, verbs, adjectives, and pronouns with blank spaces (noting which part or speech should go in that space (i.e. The _____ (proper noun) ran …) Have the first person ask the second person for the proper type of word (i.e. give me a noun) and write it in the spot where the word goes. After each team has finished read them aloud. An example will be on the blog.

From Family Fun @ http://familyfun.go.com/april-fools-day/april-fools-day-craft-pranks/13-great-april-fools-pranks-710369/ Here are some pranks:

THE PERP: Lauren R. of Slidell, Louisiana THE VICTIMS: Her children
Lauren's kids like nothing better for breakfast than a nice bowl of cold cereal with milk. Armed with that knowledge, she came to the breakfast table prepared last April, setting her kids up with their favorite cereal and a pitcher of milk--dyed green with food coloring.
THE REACTION: The kids turned green with prank envy.

THE PERPS: Barry and Kim L. of Sun Prairie, Wisconsin THE VICTIMS: Their three kids
There's a major drawback to this trick: the perp suffers along with everybody else--but early risers should find it's worth the lost sleep. Barry sprang this one on his kids last April after they switched his sugar for salt the year before. "I knew the kids would be expecting something," says Barry, "so here is what I did. As usual, we got the three children up for school. My wife and I were all ready for work. The kids were a little slow getting dressed, but they all made it to the breakfast table in time to eat--at least according to the clock. When breakfast was over, I asked my daughter to open the patio curtains, and when she did, her brothers and she saw a large sign that read, 'It's 3 A.M.--April Fool!'"
THE REACTION: "A definite family Kodak moment"

THE PERP: Betty R. THE VICTIMS: Cynthia R. (now a mom herself) and her three siblings, of Peterborough, Ontario, Canada
"On the night of March 31st, my mother waited until we were all sound asleep in our separate rooms," Cynthia recalls. "At some point--and this is the part that still amazes us--she sneaked into each of our rooms and gently carried and placed each of us into the bed of another."
THE REACTION: "In the morning, she reveled in our confusion. My brothers weren't too keen on the pink ruffles they had to endure!"

THE PERP: Janice K. of North Lawrence, Ohio THE VICTIMS: Her children
Janice wins the award for the sweetest prank--the kind most kids will gladly fall for time and again. "Since my children are usually in school on April Fools' Day," Janice says, "I like to trick them with their packed lunch. I cut a hole in their apple with an apple corer and insert a gummy worm."
THE REACTION: "It made for interesting lunchroom conversation!"