Need ideas on activities to do with your exchange student? Doing activities together helps the family bond, as we know from our own families, it is the same with exchange students. So here are some ideas on what you can do help foster that family bond:
Board Games; I haven’t found a student yet that does not know how to kill at monopoly
Card Games: ours and theirs. Note if you are playing Uno list the rules ahead of time as everyone seems to have their own.
Movie night, we take turns picking the movie and usually have take out for dinner.
Go for a hike; pick a local park and go for a walk.
Sports: play or watch. Play soccer in the back yard or basketball at the local court. Catch a local hockey or baseball game. Cheer on your favorite football team from the couch, complete with football snacks of course.
Volunteer; find local places that would allow your family and student to either volunteer occasionally or regularly if you want.
Art project or puzzle; I have literally just sat my students down and had them color with me as a relaxing hour. And we spent like 5 days completing a huge puzzle.
Go to a museum, zoo, or aquarium.
Go to festivals or concerts.
Make dinner together; you can do a night of their recipes and nights of your favorites.
Take a class together; one year we took a cookie decorating class together, another year it was glass blowing.
Teach them something new; my husband had one of our students help build benches for the kitchen.
Those are my 12 ideas, what are your ideas? You can, of course, tailor these to you and your student, maybe you hate decorating cookies so take a different class. Not into playing sports or sports at all, play some video games. The idea is just to be actively doing something together.