Halloween is that magical time of the year where most families find an opportunity to use their imagination collectively and let go of reality for a little bit.

Fortunately, there are also quite a lot of fun family activities to invest your quality time. From house decorations to a pumpkin-picking visit to a local farm, from a corn maze trek to maybe a haunted house tour for the brave ones.

And there is no better way to prepare than grabbing a big bowl of popcorn and enjoying these fantastic, family-friendly movies that will get your imagination pumping without giving you nightmares.

1. Coraline

Curious young Coraline unlocks a door in her family’s home and is transported to a universe that strangely resembles her own — only better.

2. Jack and the Cuckoo-Clock Heart

Cooking is one of the most inescapable activities of life as a family, sometimes a joy and sometimes a burden, most of us parents spend a lot of time in the kitchen.

But, ¿what about kids?. ¿Should they be automatically removed from the danger-filled spaces of the kitchen to the more tranquil lands of the leaving room?.

We have been thinking about this, and have found a lot of information that suggests that involving the kids in the food preparation process might have quite a big positive impact in their life and well-being.

This is a list of some of the benefits that we could find and that, frankly, make good reasons to encourage kids in the kitchen at any age:

• Children like to eat food they make. This is a good way to get them to try new healthy foods.
• The earlier kids become accustomed to home-cooked nutritious foods, the less likely they will […]
  

In our most recent trip to the park we begun to realize that the way kids play has changed immensely, we couldn’t even find one group of kids playing the way we used to. Of course time changes things, but it is not just that: Unstructured, messy, chaotic, free play as we knew it is completely disappearing from our kids lives.

We decided to do some web searches to find out if this was a widely spread perception and found ourselves overwhelmed with the amount of information and investigation around this issue.

This American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) report digs deep into the matter and explains:

It is through play that children at a very early age engage and interact in the world around them. Play allows children to create and explore a world they can master, conquering their fears while practicing adult roles, sometimes in conjunction with other children or adult caregivers. […]

As many parents, we are always on the hunt for engaging activities that encourage creative thinking and problem solving, but of course, they have to be as fun as possible to even get our daughter interested.

So when we found out about the latest Amazon STEM Toy Subscription for Kids we jumped right on it to give it a try.

This is what Amazon has to say about the subscription:

STEM Club is a monthly program that delivers handpicked, high-quality Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math toys to your door at a great price. Each month you will receive a different, age-appropriate STEM toy that will encourage your child to learn through play. From robotics to natural sciences, there’s always a new discovery on the way.

And these are a couple of our thoughts now that we have tried it:

• Definitely a good idea: simply choose your child’s age range (3-4, 5-7 or 8-13) […]
  

Here is a fantastic and fun activity for the kids: The LEGO Batman Movie Building Event this saturday. february 11th.

Take the opportunity to take your little LEGO enthusiasts to a Toys”R”Us where they will learn to build a Batman set, which of course they can keep.  And yes, it is completely free.

There is probably no better way to start a family related blog than with some music, and not just any music, “a song scientifically proven to make babies happy”.

¿Scientifically? Yes, a lot of research and collaboration from over 2.500 parents went into defining the key ingredients for the happy formula.

Simply awesome!

You can read the details over at https://theconversation.com/ or just go the TL;DR way and play the song.

They have also published the ‘making of‘ video, which is always a nice thing.