San Antonio Busy Kids

I know SA Busy Kids is a place you come to find family-fun and friendly activities and community events, among other things, but April Fool’s Day is upon us, and I couldn’t resist sharing some ideas for funny pranks to play on your kids. Who knows, maybe it will start a battle of wits and make April Fool’s Day pranks a family tradition!

The Parent’s Dish has some good suggestions…

• If you have more than one kid, empty their drawers and switch their clothes while they are in school today
• Put food dye at the bottom of their cups and let it dry. Watch their facial expression as they pour in the juice or milk.
• Tell them for summer family shape-up, you’ve hired a personal trainer to come at 5 a.m. every day to lead a brisk morning jog.

Since April fools falls on a Sunday this year, how about this idea from AprilFools.com: Start the day by waking your kids up like any other school day and go thru the routine, just like any other school day. Drive them to school and just before pulling up to the school, announce April Fools!

Not to be outdone, the folks at Parenting offer up these silly sights:

• Breakfast Bait & Switch. Take out the cereal bags and put them in mismatching boxes. See how long it takes for everyone to find their favorite cereal.
• If you’ve got kids who jump on the computer first thing, put part of a post-it note over the tracking ball on a computer mouse (the mouse won’t work) – make sure you write ‘April Fool’s’ on the note.
• Serve a topsy-turvy dinner: Bake meatloaf in a muffin tin and frost with mashed potatoes and serve ‘cupcakes’ for dinner (bonus points if you add food coloring to the potatoes). Then for dessert, toast strips of pound cake, and serve ‘french fries’ with red icing ‘ketchup’.
• Get hands on. Tell everyone you’ve banned utensils – hide them the night before too. Little ones will have fun with this, though it may get a little messy.
• The kid’s will have fun with this- Tell them it’s backwards day, and wear tops, pants, and dresses all in reverse- with the tag in the front!

Of course, there are always the standards: setting the clocks forward an hour, switching the sugar and the salt, telling your kids you got a call from their principal.

So what are your favorite April Fool’s pranks?