Weekender: Family Fun Ideas for Seattle, the Eastside and South Sound

These are super-weird times and I am not getting used to them. But from the Thank Goodness Department, I am incredibly grateful that under Gov. Inslee's “Stay Home, Stay Healthy” order, families can still go outside.

Here are some ideas for things to do with your fam — there's no one else you can do stuff with! — some outside and some at home. Hoping one of these ideas gives your family a few moments of activity, laughter, engagement or respite from thinking about the coronavirus.

7 ideas for family fun this weekend and beyond:

1. Make your morning snack, gather your pens and paper, then turn up for online doodle time with Mo Willems, beloved author of Pigeon and Elephant and Piggie books (Friday).
2. Sharpen your colored pencils and enter Job Carr Cabin's weekly art challenge for kids ages 12 and younger. This week's theme, fittingly, is "log cabin." Be sure to submit your entry by the end of the weekend (through Sunday).
3. Explore the beautiful green spaces of the Washington Park Arboretum on a self-guided family adventure; choose from Squirrel Chase, Sensory Buffet, Pattern Play and more (ongoing).
4. Navigate sneaky shortcuts up and down our hilly area on urban stairway walks; your kids might not even need cajoling to go on a hike like this.
5. Say, happen to have any cardboard boxes piling up? Before you recycle, put them to use with clever and entertaining cardboard projects. Kids will dig them.
6. The gov says you should go bike riding! We're not gonna argue — check our guides to kid-friendly bike paths around Seattle and the Eastside, and more bike paths around the South Sound.
7. Schedule the girl-power edition of your family movie night with these awesome movie picks featuring heroic female characters. Too cool.