The Perfect Movie Night In

November 9, 2015 by Ruthie 6 Comments

I love doing movie nights with my daughter now that she is getting older.  She is very close to sitting through the whole thing as she just turned 2 in August.  Of course, I am biased, but I think she is advanced for her age so I love to do different activities with her as well to enhance her knowledge.  She is starting to understand emotions so I thought what better movie for movie night than Inside Out.  Since she was too young to go to the movie theater, I wanted to bring the theater to her.

First things first, the movie is all about a little girl named Riley who moved from the Midwest to San Francisco. Her emotions – joy, fear, anger, disgust, and sadness help her to discover and learn more about her new city and home.  It’s a beautiful movie that really helps children learn and understand all of their emotions.  I couldn’t wait for Inside Out to come out on DVD/Blu Ray so as soon as it did (November 3rd). I rushed to Target to buy my own copy.

To accompany the movie night in I decided to make it extra special by creating a fun movie night in basket/bowl. It is filled with goodies to make our movie night extra sweet and salty and fun!  To start I filled the bowl halfway full with popcorn.  This is a fun way to make your other items in the bowl stand up higher to be better seen.  It’s a great filler and then you can even eat it too! 🙂

Decide what you want your focal piece to be (typically the movie or gift card for a movie) and make sure when arranging the rest of your items that that item stays in plain sight.  There are tons of items that you can include in your movie night in basket/bowl.  I decided to go with items that can be found at a movie theatre and at your local Target store.  I chose popcorn, popcorn oil, popcorn seasoning, candy, water, trail mix and fruit snacks (great snack for a 2-year-old, rather than a ton of candy).  Other items you could also add to your basket would be fake movie tickets, soda, popcorn bar items, DIY ticket bowl, and any other creative or fun ideas.

Another fun way to spice up your decor in your basket/bowl is to add labels to things like your water bottles.  Give them a theme to go with your movie of choice!  Small touches add a lot!  I got these adorable water covers while at my niece’s birthday party…Inside Out theme!

This movie night in a bowl is a great gift for your own family members or a great gift for a friend.  Especially with the Holidays around the corner, this would be a fun and unique gift you can give to a loved one.  It’s personalized and made with that one special person in mind.

Whenever I tell my daughter it’s time for a movie night she gets so excited!  She was even more excited when I shared the movie night in a bowl with her!  She was so excited.  A little activity I also wanted to do with her discussed the different emotions involved in the movie.  First, we started talking about each emotion and drawing the emotion down on a piece of paper.  I also showed her what each emotion looked like from the movie with the picture below.

After we discussed each emotion, I wanted her to show me the emotions through her own expressions.  It was so much fun watching her interpret each emotion!

Creating a special movie night in is a great way to have a fun activity with your family without spending a lot of money.  It’s a fun way to add a special twist to just a movie and popcorn!  You can bring the movie theatre to your home!  What items would you include in your movie night in a bowl?

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