10 Of The Best Power Outage Boredom Busters

10 Of The Best Power Outage Boredom Busters

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Power Outage Boredom Busters? Power outages can be a bad thing in more than one way. Aside from the obvious, they can be a huge issue for parents. Bored and scared kids will often act out to get their point across and when it’s dark?

power outage boredome busters

 That can be extremely dangerous. That’s why I love these 10 power outage boredom busters! They’re great for keeping both kids and adults entertained when the lights go out and the storm is raging on!

10 Power Outage Boredom Busters

Spotlight

Spotlight is played with a group of people in large, dark environments. One (or more in a large group) player is designated as the ‘seeker’. The seeker is given a torch/flash-light and loudly counts a number of seconds (thirty is a good number). During that count, the rest of the players must run and hide.

The catch? The person who is “it” can only “tag” people with their flashlight beam.

Some people might call this flashlight tag.

Shadow puppets

I know it may seem “lame” to some, but shadow puppets are actually a fun way to make it through a power outage. This old-fashioned pastime seems to have fallen by the wayside but it will help keep everyone entertained.

Check out this video so you will daze and amaze them with your mad skills:

Have a treasure hunt

Hide something (or a few things) in the house and set the kids off with flashlights to find it! First-person to find the item (or items) wins a small prize!

Go camping!

Set up a tent in the living room and have an indoor camping trip! We found this great post to help you plan it: Indoor Camping Ideas for Entertaining the Kids.

From how to pitch that tent or teepee, to games to play, down to food to serve, they have 20 fantastic ideas to pour over!

Power Outage Boredom Busters: Start a band

Grab a few pots and pans and spatulas and make “beautiful” music. Be sure to sing loud!

OK – that might get old quick, but we found this great video that shows how to make four different “instruments” for your band – that alone will keep them busy for a bit – and then they have to practice before their performance!

Play cards

Having an outage during daylight hours? Teach your kids to play cards! Play Go Fish or War for younger kids or 500 Rummy or Blackjack for older ones. They’ll work on their math skill AND have fun!

Actually, pretty much any board game will do – but a deck of cards can go a long way! Bicycle Cards has a lot of great games for kids to play on their site right here. 

Just watch out for “slap jack” – that gets a little rough, LOL.

My Favorite of the Power Outage Boredom Busters: Tell Scary Stories

Obviously, you’ll want to make sure they’re age-appropriate, but scary stories in the dark are a fantastic way to pass the time. Here are some tips:

Get a story.

Have an idea on hand about what you are going to talk about – pulling it off of the top of you head is challenging. I like to talk about Kate Blood. Doesn’t the name alone sound like a great story is coming?

Make it real.

Or at least make it SEEM real – by weaving in elements that make it seriously plausable.

Use suspense, not gore.

People’s imaginations can conjure up scarier things than we can probably describe to them. It’s the unknown that often makes our imagination run wild. This is where you bring in the drip – drip – drip of the blood off the knife or the tick – tick – tick of the clock before it shimes midnight.

Don’t just tell it; act it out.

The best story tellers really get into it themselves – they seem almost animated. Use your body to help tell your story.

Rehearse.

Practice makes perfect – if you have a “story up your sleeve” that is ready to share? You don’t have to memorize it for verbatim, but the general bullet points of flow will help make you a smash hit!

Start with a warning.

All good movies have disclaimers or ratings. Tell them right off the bat that maybe you shouldn’t be sharing this with them…

Use sound effects.

This is another great way to help sell your story – it adds layers of dimension to the entire experience.

Is there a sequel?

I think the best stories are the ones that don’t truely end – there is always that posiblilty that it could happen again, or is still happening. Is that grave really empty? What happened?

Don’t wrap it all up so there is aperfectly happy ending.

I hope that gives you a few fun tips on how to really rock that story – they will be begging you for another one!

Go on a ghost hunt

Things going bump in the dark? Grab your flashlights and go hunting for ghosts!

Power Outage Boredom Busters: Put on a show

Get out the dress clothes or play clothes and act out your favorite tv show or movie for the rest of the family. Remember to use flashlights and LED candles as spotlights!

This can be a hoot – before you know it, everyone is either cracking up or stunned as they realize that there might be an Oscar worthy actor in the family!

Tell a round-robin story

Have everyone sit around the room. One person starts the story with “Once upon a time” then passes to the next person. Each person adds 1 or 2 sentences to the story. You’d be surprised at how silly these can get!

Power outages don’t have to be boring and scary. If you get a little creative with them, they can also be fun! For moms and dads, they are also the perfect time to get things done around the house that you may have been putting off. I know that’s what I do with my time during them!

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