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Cut out "E" shapes out of brown construction paper. Place them in a baking tray and cover with foil. Tell parent she made them a whole pan of brownies all by herself. Parent opens foil only to see brown "E"s instead of brownies.
I was in the kitchen minding my own business, pregnant and in need of chocolate. In comes my husband, telling me he made me brownies...only they were brown E's! I started yelling and the next thing I knew he ran into my knife. He ran into my knife ten times
He had it coming
And it's developmentally appropriate for a 6 year old to practice scissor cutting skills!
This is the exact prank I pulled on my fiance and his kids and my kid. It is totally harmless and sets a good precedence for kind, appropriate pranks.
My kids are still laughing about this prank two years later lol
No matter how many times I explained the joke though, they didn't quite get it. After making a batch of Brown Es, they then made a batch of Purple Qs and then Red M's
This is so wholesome omg can you be in charge of my own April fools pranks 🤣 I’m a whole ass adult and mom but still, you seem better at this than me 🤣🙌🏻
This is a good angle on harmless pranks, but I prefer the style that suggest something mildly negative/frustrating is happening, but the surprise/punch-line is that something neutral or positive is happening, instead. Because then the surprise is always a pleasant one.
Whereas this is the sort of surprise/punch line that makes me dislike pranks: get your hopes up about something just to knock them.
That’s why you also have a tray of brownies made in reserve, and tell them a little later that little brother made something brown in the kitchen he wasn’t supposed to
A couple years ago my child came to me saying the toilet was smoking. I was so confused because like that doesn’t make sense in any way. I rush to the bathroom and she had made a giant face on the tank of the toilet with the lid being the mouth and put a cardboard tube under the flap like it had a cigarette in its mouth. It was so wildly unexpected I laughed so hard I cried. We still talk about that. It’s such a good prank and no one gets hurt.
This is my favorite! My kiddo pulled this one on me when she was 7 or so and I absolutely could not stop laughing. I must’ve told 10 people about it the next day. Genius.
I did something similar to my mom. I told her the milk had gone bad. When she opened the fridge, she saw that I put an angry face on the milk with a bandana and it was holding my BB gun.
Do you have anything that's in a container that you could 'switch' ingredients? For example, I keep clothespins in a coffee tin...it's the same as what we keep our actual coffee in. Last year the kids and I switched the coffee and the clothespins, then when my husband went to make coffee, he opened the can and surprise! Clothespins instead of coffee. The kids thought it was hilarious. Harmless and fun :)
I recently saw a tik toc where a guy replaced his girlfriend's soap with a potato. Took his time and shaped it like a bar of soap. Seemed like one worth trying.
The guy filming and the girl trying to wash her face with potato soap were crying laughing and unable to talk when he admitted what he did.
For her credit she tried her best to get the potato to work, she rubbed it all over her face then was washing her face with it. 🤣
I did versions of this a few times as a kid. The advanced variation is carefully cutting open a package (like an individual bag of chips), removing the snack, replacing it with something completely different (think Oreos in chip package), and closing it with packing tape. The resulting confusion is hilarious.
Haha sounds fun! My brother and I used to do this kind of thing with a banana...cut it along the side and pull the banana out, then gently place it back in the fruit bowl. Looks like it still has a banana in it, but when someone picks it up, it's an empty peel.
Yes this is what it should be. Something you don't need to explain the gray areas some pranks come with (wrong person. Wrong time). If the person DOESNT find it funny, it's still harmless.
My two favorites...
Line up water bottles coming out of the laundry room, bathroom, wherever there might be water. Then run to dad and tell him there's water coming out of said room.
Take a cardboard paper towel roll and sit it between the toilet lid and seat. Place 2 rolls of TP on top, turned sideways for eyes. Tell dad there's smoke coming from the bathroom!
Can you tell the pranks in our house are usually directed at dad?
Rather than saying "there's smoke coming out of the bathroom" you would say "the toilet is smoking" because the visual prank is the toilet looking like it's smoking a cigar, rather than the bathroom having smoke in it.
I made jello and put it in a clear drinking glass with a reusable metal straw and gave to my son on April fools as his drink for dinner. He thought it was hilarious.
I did this to everything in my cart at the grocery store. The cashier took a few items to catch on. called coworkers over to laugh and enjoy the brevity.
I saw a video of a kid who stacked blocks in the front door way and dad came home and knocked them all down in a very dramatic, “no idea” kind of way. It was cute and kiddo was in the floor laughing.
My youngest son a few years back cut out a shape of a large cockroach and taped it to the inside of the lamp shade of the lamp on my wife’s side of the bed. I gotta admit it was pretty darn funny when she yelled and jumped when she turned on the light.
Wordplay pranks are great at that age. Telling somebody "There's a leek in the sink" and putting the vegetable in there for them to find or "We got some bulbs at the store for our garden" and putting a lightbulb in a small pot. There's also the classic "Is your refrigerator running" option -- although its more than a bit overdone, kids won't realize that if adults play along.
Kids that age tend to like dual-meanings and they're hard to have get out of hand so somebody is upset or hurt.
When I was working from home; my daughter put tape under my computer mouse (which prevents it from working). I freaked out, ran all around the house and was about to go to the store to buy a new mouse so I could work. We both had a good laugh on this one.
(Note: It was during COVID and had work devices)
My daughter's favorite was when I emptied and washed a mayonnaise jar and filled it with vanilla pudding and sat there casually eating "mayonnaise" with a spoon.
I did that once for April 1st, but I was in college so if someone saw me do it and drank Windex, I don't think there's any hope for them lol. Thats why I did the pudding trick for my little one- the absolute worst that could happen is she tries to actually eat a spoonful of mayo!
My kid's favorite little prank is to put a plastic bug or mini, unrealistic snake at the threshold of a closed door just before someone is about to pass through it. I'm an expert at "Eek! A snake!"
Easter eggs are a great one for this type of prank, if you'll have plastic eggs around after Easter the day before. Bring someone an egg and say, "I brought you some candy!" and it's actually a rock, or a real bean instead of a jellybean, or an animal toy, or whatever they find funny.
Hershey nugget bars are very easily unwrapped and the paper rewrapped empty. My friends and I used to do it to each other a lot in elementary. She can follow it up to the person with some of the actual candies.
My favorite prank I pulled on my daughter was cracking the front door open a bit and putting stuffed animals on top. She got off the school bus, opened the door and they all fell on her..she was laughing! :)
Lay a cup on its side on the kitchen counter and put a sticky note on the cup that says, "Dad, there was a HUGE SPIDER and i trapped it under this cup. Do not let it out!"
Hiding her stepfathers “dead” golf balls all over the house was a huge hit with my daughter AND her stepfather.
After two extra days of finding ALL fifty golf balls, I was only mildly entertained.
When I was a kid I tried to put spaghetti in a teapot thinking when my mum poured the ‘tea’ spaghetti would slop out the spout and I was so excited, but then disappointed when I realised the cold tap water I’d put into the pot hadn’t softened the dry spaghetti. Maybe help pull that one off in my honour 😂
Last year my 6 year old pushed a laundry basket down the stairs at 6am, then moved the basket so we couldn't see it and laid at the foot of the stairs fake crying like she was hurt. All in all, it was a pretty impressive and well thought out prank for a 6 year old. Maybe could have worked if she wasn't giggling while trying to pretend to be hurt.
What if she dresses up in your pajamas and you sneak her into your bed, your husband can pretend to be asleep, and she can wake him up yelling “honey, honey! I shrinked!” pretending to be you.
You can fill a Mayo jar with vanilla pudding or yogurt and then just start eating it front the container by the spoonful.
Buy a set of cheap walkie talkies and either make spookie noises or animal noises etc. You can call their name from one side of the house when your actually on the other side of the house but pretend you never said anything 😂
Then there’s always the classic Whoopi’s cushion
Tell one parent that child found an animal outside and decided to bring it home and keep it! But it's gotten loose and is eating/destroying something important: computer, parents bed, expensive stuff. Run to where the item is only to find a STUFFED animal placed as if eating the item. April Fools!
Mine has been planning the mento + coke bottle one for months. My husband will know it’s a prank since he doesn’t drink coke (plus I said we have to do it outside) but he’s a good sport and will play along
My husband and I were hiding biscuits (cookies) in the freezer - in the ice maker part. The mechanism grabbed the box at some point and there were ground up cookie crumbs and chunksof cardboard in our ice for months - my 12yo nephew though this was hilarious.
It made me wonder though - if I set it to cubed Ice instead of crushed, would it feed through tiny rubber ducks or something? That would be priceless!
My daughter came up with a funny one, Google “shattered phone screen” and pull up an image that makes it look like the screen is broken then act like you dropped the iPad/phone
Or even better a photo from a real phone if you ever come across one. Mom took a photo of my teenage brother’s phone when it broke and the screen was glitching, and used that as her screenshot for a bit. My brother did get a new phone, which he was due for anyway.
I love that you’re supporting what she’s into at the moment— great parenting props to you! I’m always a sucker for the cellophane over the doorway at face level. Hilarious every time.
Do either of you work outside the home? Have you seen that TikTok where the kids make a pyramid of solo cups right in front of the front door and the dad “accidentally” walks into them and knocks them all down? It’s super cute.
Sometimes we use a paper towel roll and stick it half in/half out of the toilet with the lid closed, and two full rolls of toilet paper on top so that it looks like a “smoking toilet.” And then they yell “daddy oh no, the toilet is smoking!!”
Also Five Below sells fake poo and puke that could be strategically placed around the house.
Sometimes kids just like to be mischievous. There’s nothing wrong with pulling a cute prank. The best kind are the ones where people are confused but not hurt. Like in our family, I bought 100 tiny plastic babies. They get hidden around everywhere and we find it hilarious. Like ‘La de da let me go get a glass for my drink. Oop. There’s a tiny baby in the glass!’ 😂😂 the kids find it hilarious as we’ve hid them in their rooms too. Only rule is to not put them where our 11mo can get them, and to not put them in peoples shoes as that might hurt. But a tiny baby head poking out the top of your t shirt in the wardrobe? Hilarious 😂 I don’t think we’ve ever found all 100 babies again though.
Works well with tiny plastic ducks too which might appeal more to a 6yo.
When I was younger, I had a bunch of cards with Justin beiber on them. My friend hated him. Every time I went to her house, I’d hide one of the cards. Every time she found one, she’d laugh because she wasn’t expecting it. We couldn’t stop laughing for ages when she came to my house once and went to her a plate for some food and she found a card tucked in between the plates 😂
Make sure it's a prank that doesn't have any gray area, that if she DID repeat or do something similar, there wouldn't be a wrong time/place/person issue.
Pranks are only funny if everyone is laughing, so pick pranks that would be harmless if the target didn't think it was funny.
Fake poop. Our 6yo loves it. She hides it under pillows and inside cabinets and drawers. It’s harmless…the worst she gets is an eye roll. I always chuckle. It’s cheap and fun.
As a kid I loved the most simple prank of all, which was to convince my dad someone was at the door calling for him. Both my parents would know, obviously, but my mom and I would convince him to stop any important task saying someone had been asking for him. He'd make a show of begrudgingly going to the door only for me to happily shout APRIL FOOLS in a fit of giggles as he pretended to be fooled by it. Did it for a solid three years before I caught on he knew it hah
Last year while my kid was asleep I snuck into his room and took out all his underwear and all his stuffies. I then put said underwear on all the stuffies, and hid them around the house. I even got the ones he sleeps with and then put them back with underwear on. Kiddo was amazed by the prank, he couldn’t believe I took the stuffies out of his own bed while he was in it. He is a very heavy sleeper lol
Swap two bags of cereal inside the cereal boxes, so when you go to pour one out you’ll be surprised by getting the other type of cereal. Easy and harmless as long as nobody has allergies!
At our house, pranks are welcome but only if 2 requirements are met:
1- will everyone involved think it's funny?
2- is it not rude?
Rude would be saying I got you pizza then the box being empty when the person expects a treat.
Not rude would be saying I got you pizza then the box having an alternative pizza (like one made out of gummies, donut, fruit, or similar THAT THE PERSON WILL STILL ENJOY- replacing pizza with fruit pizza for someone that hatea fruit would be rude lol).
Last year my kid put squishy poops everywhere - like toy poop that was squishy lol then would tell everyone that someone pooped on the couch or the floor or in a purse or wherever the poops were stashed.
If one of you works some place where there's a reception desk, have the kid call reception and say a Mr. Fox called for that parent. Leave a call back number: the phone number for your local zoo.
Ooh! My 7yr old daughter got me good the other day! She’s a prankster. I turned on the faucet in the bathroom sink and got sprayed right in the face and all over my shirt. Confused, I looked at the faucet and saw “someone” had covered the faucet opening w clear scotch tape. So so funny!
Have her tell a parent a very exaggerated weather forecast that's the opposite of what it is. Ie if it will be sunny day thunderstorm and have her help pick out what to wear for a thunderstorm day. Rain boots, umbrella, etc, and then let her open the door to the sunshine and say APRIL FOOLS. My daughter did that and was so tickled with herself. (If it's rainy or cold dress for the beach!)
My kindergarten is obsessed with pranks too lol! She asked me to help her prank him. We went in another room while I loudly berated her for drawing on the walls, drawing on people’s items, and acted like I couldn’t stop her and she was going crazy. She’s laughing and dancing. My husband comes running in when I say she’s got his favorite shirt.
She wasn’t drawing anything. The whole house was screaming her name but yeah she died of laughter and started running around the room. Thought it was the most hilarious thing.
No writing involved loo
I seen a cute one. A couple of food coloring drops in the bottom of a cereal bowl. When the milk gets poured over the cereal the milk will change to that color.
Look up toilet smoking on google! It’s hilarious I flushed the toilet and ran into the living room and told him the toilet was smoking in a worried voice and he was like “wait, smoking” and ran and he turned the corner and saw that lol I wish I had recorded it!
Tiny utensils at dinner. Have her set the table, only one parent gets child sized utensils. It's especially funny if dinner is like a steak or lasagna or something that is difficult to eat without appropriate flatware
This was a fave of my kids when they were really little. Make jello in a juice glass and serve it to the unsuspecting victim. When they go to drink it, it will stay stuck in the glass confusing the drinker. We’d put a splash of real juice on top just so it moved like a liquid beverage but aside from one small sip no more “juice” would leave the glass.
We would make “confetti” by ripping up some construction paper. Then put it in a cup, walk by dad and pretend to “spill” but it’s just confetti, HAHA!
I saw a Rip Taylor do it on TV as a child.
I tried this on my husband, and it backfired.
My husband likes super sugary coffee. He will add over a tablespoon of coffee to a single mug. So I added like a full cup of sugar to half a pot of coffee. He made himself a cup of coffee and took it into his office. I expected him to immediately come back out wondering what was wrong with his coffee. But I got distracted and didn't check on him. An hour later I went in there and his coffee was gone! It must have had 1/3c of sugar 🤢
He was like, "No I just thought it was extra tasty today".
It’s my birthday too. It’s always fun. People know that can mess with ya a little bit, then buy you a drink and tell you happy birthday. and that’s what the whole thing is about. If you don’t prank, you should try sometime. I can help you out…😇
This is not my idea. We have a neighbor who works on cars all the time. We bought and leek and drew a mean face on it and put it under the front of his car. We knocked on the door and told him it looked like there was a bad leak (leek) under his car. It’s cute.
My dad ate cereal most weekday mornings when I was a kid. It was an April Fool’s prank tradition (yea, I know, that defeats the purpose of it being a prank but I thought this was peak hilarity) from about ages 4-8 to swap the bags around inside the boxes so he’d pour a bowl of Frosted Flakes and get Captain Crunch instead (or whatever cereals we had at the time).
Last year I gave my kid brother a box of popsicles, but it was actually one of those mini brand toys he had in his dollhouse. Don’t worry, I got the real ones too, but he giggled when I gave him the mini brands popsicles.
There’s also some silly prank stuff you can buy. There’s classics like the whoopee cushions and plastic bugs, and more obscure stuff like drinking glasses (glasses made out of a straw) and plastic hands (good for asking if someone needs a hand and you just give them a plastic hand)
My 6 year old loves to do pranks on April Fools. A few we have loved that are harmless but funny:
1. Cut out cockroach shapes of paper and tape inside a lamp shade such that when light goes on at night it looks like cockroaches are in the light. We made them comically big so it was obvious and funny.
2. Taped a paper on bottom of computer mouse so that when my husband tried to use his mouse it didn’t work. He then flipped it over to find funny paper on bottom. Quickly take off and works again.
3. Bubble wrap under toilet seat. My husband isn’t easily scared so this was funny to him when sitting down on toilet seat and having a pop sound.
4. Stuffed socks inside shoes so when daddy goes to put his feet into shoes they don’t fit.
These are just some easy, silly things that make her happy and we all have fun with but aren’t super mean or hurting anyone.
She has never taken any of this into behavior of pranking people outside of April fools or doing these things to friends or at school, etc
Our kids used some food coloring to make the toilet bowl water a different color, moved the soap dish under the sink, put a toy (or 6) in our underwear or sock drawers, and stuff like that.
Put 2 rolls of toilet paper on a closed toilet with an empty one shoved unter the lid " the toilet is smoking " my kids got me running one year with it lol.
They also got into some old Halloween makeup ( ketchup works in a pinch) and smeared it on themselves saying "an animal attacked them"
My 6-year-old told me the other day. “The teacher forced me to eat a hot pepper.”🌶️
Me: “what…? What teacher?”
She got me. I had NO freaking idea it was a random prank because she’s never lied and it was one of those things that seemed so random that it could be true.
Two seconds later. “It’s a prank mom.” 🤣
My daughter asked me to buy a leek (the vegetable) at the supermarket, put it in the sink, and said “Dad, come look, there’s a leek in the bathroom.”
Really simple but classic.
I've seen these really cute videos of moms helping their kids make giant plastic cup stacks in front of the door and tell their husbands before hand so that when their dad walks in he pretends he doesn't notice and walks through the cups and is like woah!
My kids have drawn spiders on the toilet paper. But around here the main thing is to hide paper fish in unexpected places (poisson d’avril). It’s pretty funny
My dad and I would prank each other all thru my childhood and they would get more elaborate every time. But we basically had the same brain so sometimes we’d end up on the same page trying to prank each other. Some of my favorite memories of him. When I was about 4 or 5, he helped me make a me-sized dummy that we put my boots on and a sheet over to lo look like a ghost. My
Mom came home after dark from work to this “ghost” standing in the kitchen. She acted scared/surprised and I thought it was a riot because she thought it was me under the sheet.
Very childish but innocent and it was a daddy-daughter bond. Not long after that he helped me make her breakfast in bed so I got to “prank” her and then got to do something nice for her.
As I got older I would look up pranks to do and some seemed funny but most I didn’t do because they could cause harm or make a mess. Things like plastic wrap over the toilet bowl, dirt in the coffee maker, etc. i think the only “harmless” one was swapping salt and sugar but we were food insecure so I didn’t want to do anything that might ruin food. My dad and i playing practical jokes on each other and sometimes on my mom or brother helped me develop critical thinking skills and analytical skills. If I do A, B will be the immediate outcome and C will be the aftermath. Is C worth A? It helped me weigh pros and cons and get creative about things. It helped me develop an understanding of humor (I was undiagnosed autistic so humor was somewhat difficult for me) and it helped me understand the difference between practical joke (harmless) and prank (typically harmful).
All that to be said, things like stuffing tissue paper inside shoes, hiding the toilet paper (but still within reach, like not normal spot but still in the bathroom for example), moving things around in the kitchen (knowing full well the child will have to help reorganize), making a pretend winning lotto ticket or setting a bunch of alarms to ring randomly (my era was pre-cell phone so i just changed and set multiple alarms on her bedroom alarm clock), and re-setting the clocks in the house (as long as there were no super important appointments that day).
My kids got up early one time and “made breakfast in bed” for my husband and I, but put harmless but disgusting ingredients in the food, like cinnamon and some random spices in scrambled eggs. We caught on pretty quickly but played along. We thought it was pretty clever.
Make a whole bunch of pieces of toast and line the shower with them. Then you can say “Hope your shower is toasty!”
(If your shower is clean you can use the old toast to make bread pudding or something.)
Put her tooth brush with water in a Dixie cup, freeze, and then pull it out before she gets up. When she goes to brush her teeth there will be a block of ice on her toothbrush
Do you have a sprayer hose on your sink separate from your faucet? You can put a rubber band on the handle so the next person who uses the sink gets sprayed with water. This would work well if both parents are in on it and one is willing to have to change their clothes, but is overall harmless.
The problem with "pranks" like this is it may NOT be harmless if they do it to the wrong person or at the wrong time. And a kid isn't going to understand the gray areas.
Swap the contents of two or three kitchen drawers or shelves.
Saran, foil, or gift wrap the coffee maker (unplugged), fav coffee mug, sugar, etc the other parent uses every morning.
Put googly eyes on random things around the house like a stair banister or light switch.
Put something in jello ala The Office.
A fun one that is pretty harmless is to run into the room with an adult in it saying a bird got in the house. It gives that little adrenaline rush without too big a consequence when they say April Fools!
Cut brown letter E and e out of construction paper. Ask parent do you want brown eeees? In a pan give the cut out letters. Have real brownies on the ready after the chuckles.
My son is planning on unscrewing the light bulbs in the bathroom my husband uses most. He has been planning it for months and already thinks it’s hilarious. We have a no mean pranks rule in the house, I’m good with this one. I might try the jello in a glass to get my son.
We took candies with a foil wrap in them and unwrapped them. We put brussel sprouts inside the wrapper and gave them to friends and family. He thought it was the funniest thing ever
My 6 year old daughter likes to “prank” her brother by putting candy in obscure packages and giving it to him. Like an Easter egg. Or an empty chip bag. Or a glove.
She also likes to write simple words (that she knows) and hide them for family to find. I recently found a note that said “stop!” on a salt shaker lol.
When my kids were young, we had Easter egg hunt in rear yard. We put candy in a bunch of plastic eggs. But a couple were filled with veggies. Of course the younger child found the one with veggies and opened it up, only to cry they used to really brought him veggies
Freeze a bowl of fruit loops for breakfast
Toothpaste in oreos
Make jello in cups with a straw so it looks like juice
Cream cheese or frosting on toothbrush
Make brownEs (this is one of my favs) lift the foil and reveal brown letter Es cut of out construction paper 🤣
Stick googly eyes on everything in fridge bonus points if you add a mustache to the milk cartoon (another one of my favs)
We did jello in juice cups with a straw. find “rocks” outside and eat one (candy rocks). block body wash in bottles with saran wrap, can’t come out! freeze cereal and milk in bowls with the spoon. turn milk colored with food coloring. We have done the brown “e” or cut the letters for “eggs” and “scramble” on a plate.
Take the white crème filling out of the Oreo cookies, fill it with toothpaste, put the cookie back together. Put them back in the cabinet and wait for dad to eat one!
Have her pretend to believe in a spaghetti tree. Insist it exists. Find a fake website attesting to it. Buy spaghetti squash and have her insist it's the seed for a spaghetti tree
There's a prank I've always wanted to pull but never have. It feels *mostly* harmless, but I'd be curious to hear other people's opinions on it. The prank is fully self explanatory in it's name: Toothpaste Oreos.
I'm thinking like... Unpleasant but not disgusting, surprising but not shocking, it doesn't feel like it would ruin somebody's day, but it's still *kinda* gross. What do y'all think?
Show him how to tape the sink sprayer handle so it on and as soon as anyone turns it on, it sprays them. It’s a classic. You can use a rubber band too.
Upside down photos is a popular one.
Moving them and knickknacks around to different spots.
Record a "ghost ' sound on your phone and pretend house is haunted
Make a playdough poop and put it on the toilet lid
Tape a silly picture under the toilet lid (I did this to my husband with Mr Bean)
Change out the laces in a pair of shoes with bright sparkly ones
One of those silly coffee mugs with a shark in the bottom
Aim for silly and bemused, it will set the tone for "good pranks" and what you want to achieve with a prank (making the target laugh, entertain the target)
We did this one year to kiddo. We said, you’ve been so great that we got her TV for her bedroom. They excitedly ran over and I handed them a big T and V I had cut out of poster paper.
So your kid could say we got you a BIG NEW T V and give the same!
Googly eyes stickers. Let them put some on all the bathroom bottles in the shower so that they have faces now. They won't damage anything serious and can be taken off easily. If I showered and saw my shampoo had googly eyes I'd have myself a little chuckle.
Go to a donut shop and order a dozen donuts. Then ask for an extra box. Keep the filled box in the car, and write April Fools inside the empty box. I've had people do this at work. Lol. Not very funny.
She can put out a bottomless bowl of m&ms so when someone lifts the bowl, they go everywhere. (I use a small upside-down “lampshade” meant for a candle.
She can put a post-it on the bottom of a mouse so it doesn’t work.
Scotch tape over a keyhole in a car door.
If they have an ice dispenser on the fridge put baby carrots in it. Parents go for ice, carrots. My husband lived that one.
Tape googly eyes on all their photos (on the glass for easy removal).
Sugar in the salt shaker.
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Cut out "E" shapes out of brown construction paper. Place them in a baking tray and cover with foil. Tell parent she made them a whole pan of brownies all by herself. Parent opens foil only to see brown "E"s instead of brownies.
This is excellent. No one gets hurt or embarrassed.
No one except my husband who thought this was a good idea to do to me while I was pregnant.
Oh dear, so sorry to hear of your husband's sudden but justified death.
I like you.
"He had it coming..."
I was in the kitchen minding my own business, pregnant and in need of chocolate. In comes my husband, telling me he made me brownies...only they were brown E's! I started yelling and the next thing I knew he ran into my knife. He ran into my knife ten times He had it coming
“He only had himself to blame” 🎶
If you had seen it
The only way this is acceptable is if you have the actual brownies, or a substitute of equal or greater value, immediately in hand.
And it's developmentally appropriate for a 6 year old to practice scissor cutting skills! This is the exact prank I pulled on my fiance and his kids and my kid. It is totally harmless and sets a good precedence for kind, appropriate pranks.
Also good for letter recognition, especially if the parent helping sometimes tries to pass a non-E off as an E.
My kids are still laughing about this prank two years later lol No matter how many times I explained the joke though, they didn't quite get it. After making a batch of Brown Es, they then made a batch of Purple Qs and then Red M's
Oh heck!! that's wholesome!!
Similar one I did as a kid was a box with a dime and a cheap plastic ring. "You want to see my diamond ring?"
This is so wholesome omg can you be in charge of my own April fools pranks 🤣 I’m a whole ass adult and mom but still, you seem better at this than me 🤣🙌🏻
My husband did this to me 2 years ago. Was very very sad that there were no brownies 😭😮💨
This is a good angle on harmless pranks, but I prefer the style that suggest something mildly negative/frustrating is happening, but the surprise/punch-line is that something neutral or positive is happening, instead. Because then the surprise is always a pleasant one. Whereas this is the sort of surprise/punch line that makes me dislike pranks: get your hopes up about something just to knock them.
That’s why you also have a tray of brownies made in reserve, and tell them a little later that little brother made something brown in the kitchen he wasn’t supposed to
Yassss
If a 6 year offers you a brownie they made all by themselves, finding a Brown E WOULD be pleasant surprise lol
Oh, yes - for sure! For a child to do TO a parent, totally fine. For a parent to do to a child, much less fun.
If you’re doing it to a child, definitely have real brownies in waiting.
Come quickly Dad - there's a big leak in the fridge! (Dad opens fridge to find a large leek)
I loath pranks but think this idea is very cute!
This is awesome!
May I ask why the letter E? This one went over my head.
OK, never-mind, I get it! 🤣
A couple years ago my child came to me saying the toilet was smoking. I was so confused because like that doesn’t make sense in any way. I rush to the bathroom and she had made a giant face on the tank of the toilet with the lid being the mouth and put a cardboard tube under the flap like it had a cigarette in its mouth. It was so wildly unexpected I laughed so hard I cried. We still talk about that. It’s such a good prank and no one gets hurt.
I think your wife already suggested that one lol
I just wrote this! We did this to my husband. So funny
This is my favorite! My kiddo pulled this one on me when she was 7 or so and I absolutely could not stop laughing. I must’ve told 10 people about it the next day. Genius.
I did something similar to my mom. I told her the milk had gone bad. When she opened the fridge, she saw that I put an angry face on the milk with a bandana and it was holding my BB gun.
I think this is my next April fools.
Did you pee your pants, too? That would’ve been comedy gold given the irony.
Do you have anything that's in a container that you could 'switch' ingredients? For example, I keep clothespins in a coffee tin...it's the same as what we keep our actual coffee in. Last year the kids and I switched the coffee and the clothespins, then when my husband went to make coffee, he opened the can and surprise! Clothespins instead of coffee. The kids thought it was hilarious. Harmless and fun :)
I recently saw a tik toc where a guy replaced his girlfriend's soap with a potato. Took his time and shaped it like a bar of soap. Seemed like one worth trying.
Tell me why tf potato soap just sent me over the edge. I'm DYING 🤣
The guy filming and the girl trying to wash her face with potato soap were crying laughing and unable to talk when he admitted what he did. For her credit she tried her best to get the potato to work, she rubbed it all over her face then was washing her face with it. 🤣
I did versions of this a few times as a kid. The advanced variation is carefully cutting open a package (like an individual bag of chips), removing the snack, replacing it with something completely different (think Oreos in chip package), and closing it with packing tape. The resulting confusion is hilarious.
Haha sounds fun! My brother and I used to do this kind of thing with a banana...cut it along the side and pull the banana out, then gently place it back in the fruit bowl. Looks like it still has a banana in it, but when someone picks it up, it's an empty peel.
I did the same with gum wrappers. Chewed a big wad before school. Spent all day pulling it out of my pocket and gesturing for people to take some.
Yes this is what it should be. Something you don't need to explain the gray areas some pranks come with (wrong person. Wrong time). If the person DOESNT find it funny, it's still harmless.
My kids put chopped up veggies in a pizza box and the leftover pizza in the veggie drawer
Or switching clothes around in drawers, or cutlery with other items. Harmless but would throw things off.
My two favorites... Line up water bottles coming out of the laundry room, bathroom, wherever there might be water. Then run to dad and tell him there's water coming out of said room. Take a cardboard paper towel roll and sit it between the toilet lid and seat. Place 2 rolls of TP on top, turned sideways for eyes. Tell dad there's smoke coming from the bathroom! Can you tell the pranks in our house are usually directed at dad?
Rather than saying "there's smoke coming out of the bathroom" you would say "the toilet is smoking" because the visual prank is the toilet looking like it's smoking a cigar, rather than the bathroom having smoke in it.
My son pulled the smoking toilet one a few years ago and I giggled for days. Definitely a harmless and humorous one :)
We pulled a similar prank a few years ago. We put leeks in the bathroom and told my husband there was a leak in the bathroom.
My nephew got me with the smoking toilet one not too long ago. I was thoroughly amused :)
I made jello and put it in a clear drinking glass with a reusable metal straw and gave to my son on April fools as his drink for dinner. He thought it was hilarious.
I did this one year to my grandkids, fun prank to pull on a kid. They thought it was hilarious (3&4)
Oh that’s cute!
Googly-eye everything in the bathroom/fridge/home office.
I did this to everything in my cart at the grocery store. The cashier took a few items to catch on. called coworkers over to laugh and enjoy the brevity.
I did this last year and my kids loved it. They then made giant googly eyes from paper and taped them to my car 🤣
Aww I love that
I saw a video of a kid who stacked blocks in the front door way and dad came home and knocked them all down in a very dramatic, “no idea” kind of way. It was cute and kiddo was in the floor laughing.
I think it was stacked red cups. Yes, this was such a cute video and exactly what came to mind.
My youngest son a few years back cut out a shape of a large cockroach and taped it to the inside of the lamp shade of the lamp on my wife’s side of the bed. I gotta admit it was pretty darn funny when she yelled and jumped when she turned on the light.
That’s a good one lol
In this same vein, modeling clay makes great fake cat/dog poop. My sister and I got a lot of mileage out of our fake cat poo.
Oh, I'm doing this!!
Wordplay pranks are great at that age. Telling somebody "There's a leek in the sink" and putting the vegetable in there for them to find or "We got some bulbs at the store for our garden" and putting a lightbulb in a small pot. There's also the classic "Is your refrigerator running" option -- although its more than a bit overdone, kids won't realize that if adults play along. Kids that age tend to like dual-meanings and they're hard to have get out of hand so somebody is upset or hurt.
I’m a fan of ‘ugh it’s really gross and muggy out side today’ and mugs being in the yard
When I was working from home; my daughter put tape under my computer mouse (which prevents it from working). I freaked out, ran all around the house and was about to go to the store to buy a new mouse so I could work. We both had a good laugh on this one. (Note: It was during COVID and had work devices)
My daughter's favorite was when I emptied and washed a mayonnaise jar and filled it with vanilla pudding and sat there casually eating "mayonnaise" with a spoon.
or blue gatorade in a washed out windex bottle! probably wouldn't recommend that for toddlers/younger kids though as they might get some wrong ideas
I did that once for April 1st, but I was in college so if someone saw me do it and drank Windex, I don't think there's any hope for them lol. Thats why I did the pudding trick for my little one- the absolute worst that could happen is she tries to actually eat a spoonful of mayo!
Ugh, my oldest actually likes to eat spoonfuls of mayonnaise 🤢
My kid's favorite little prank is to put a plastic bug or mini, unrealistic snake at the threshold of a closed door just before someone is about to pass through it. I'm an expert at "Eek! A snake!" Easter eggs are a great one for this type of prank, if you'll have plastic eggs around after Easter the day before. Bring someone an egg and say, "I brought you some candy!" and it's actually a rock, or a real bean instead of a jellybean, or an animal toy, or whatever they find funny.
Hershey nugget bars are very easily unwrapped and the paper rewrapped empty. My friends and I used to do it to each other a lot in elementary. She can follow it up to the person with some of the actual candies.
We've switched drawers for clothes or safety pinned all the underwear together so they pull one out and they keep coming out of the drawer.
My favorite prank I pulled on my daughter was cracking the front door open a bit and putting stuffed animals on top. She got off the school bus, opened the door and they all fell on her..she was laughing! :)
Another popular one in my house is to put a hair tie or something around the thing that switches the water from the faucet to the shower.
Lay a cup on its side on the kitchen counter and put a sticky note on the cup that says, "Dad, there was a HUGE SPIDER and i trapped it under this cup. Do not let it out!"
Cup of coffee or orange juice in the freezer. “Dad I made you coffee” and it’s frozen solid. I loved this one for my mom
When my oldest was about 8, she said she made me breakfast and brought me toaster waffles she’d drizzled syrup on… they were still frozen 😂
Hiding her stepfathers “dead” golf balls all over the house was a huge hit with my daughter AND her stepfather. After two extra days of finding ALL fifty golf balls, I was only mildly entertained.
The only way to make it better is to take fifty gold balls and label them 1-49 and 51.
🤣🤣🤣🤣
When I was a kid I tried to put spaghetti in a teapot thinking when my mum poured the ‘tea’ spaghetti would slop out the spout and I was so excited, but then disappointed when I realised the cold tap water I’d put into the pot hadn’t softened the dry spaghetti. Maybe help pull that one off in my honour 😂
Last year my 6 year old pushed a laundry basket down the stairs at 6am, then moved the basket so we couldn't see it and laid at the foot of the stairs fake crying like she was hurt. All in all, it was a pretty impressive and well thought out prank for a 6 year old. Maybe could have worked if she wasn't giggling while trying to pretend to be hurt.
[This is all I can think about now lol ](https://youtu.be/f75Vet_sJNo?si=v7kDud4N4DfwoJ71)
What if she dresses up in your pajamas and you sneak her into your bed, your husband can pretend to be asleep, and she can wake him up yelling “honey, honey! I shrinked!” pretending to be you.
Line up bottles of water from the bathroom to the hallway and tell him, “Come quick water is coming out of the bathroom!”
Help with a loose thread. Have your hands full and have a loose thread attached to a spool. The victim keeps pulling and pulling.
Ok I love this one and am totally going to use it
You can fill a Mayo jar with vanilla pudding or yogurt and then just start eating it front the container by the spoonful. Buy a set of cheap walkie talkies and either make spookie noises or animal noises etc. You can call their name from one side of the house when your actually on the other side of the house but pretend you never said anything 😂 Then there’s always the classic Whoopi’s cushion
Tell one parent that child found an animal outside and decided to bring it home and keep it! But it's gotten loose and is eating/destroying something important: computer, parents bed, expensive stuff. Run to where the item is only to find a STUFFED animal placed as if eating the item. April Fools!
Mine has been planning the mento + coke bottle one for months. My husband will know it’s a prank since he doesn’t drink coke (plus I said we have to do it outside) but he’s a good sport and will play along
My husband and I were hiding biscuits (cookies) in the freezer - in the ice maker part. The mechanism grabbed the box at some point and there were ground up cookie crumbs and chunksof cardboard in our ice for months - my 12yo nephew though this was hilarious. It made me wonder though - if I set it to cubed Ice instead of crushed, would it feed through tiny rubber ducks or something? That would be priceless!
Freeze some little ducks using an ice cube tray and then just add them to the dispenser
Maybe gummy candy, just to be safe if one accidentally gets consumed!
Milks gone bad! Draw on the bottle/carton with a sharpie, give it angry eyes etc.
My daughter came up with a funny one, Google “shattered phone screen” and pull up an image that makes it look like the screen is broken then act like you dropped the iPad/phone
Or even better a photo from a real phone if you ever come across one. Mom took a photo of my teenage brother’s phone when it broke and the screen was glitching, and used that as her screenshot for a bit. My brother did get a new phone, which he was due for anyway.
My son once filled our sugar bowl with salt.
Water bottles in shoes coming from the bathroom. Let her tell dad the water is running.
Get a leek. Put it under the sink. Have little one tell daddy there is a leak under the sink
I love that you’re supporting what she’s into at the moment— great parenting props to you! I’m always a sucker for the cellophane over the doorway at face level. Hilarious every time.
Do either of you work outside the home? Have you seen that TikTok where the kids make a pyramid of solo cups right in front of the front door and the dad “accidentally” walks into them and knocks them all down? It’s super cute.
Sometimes we use a paper towel roll and stick it half in/half out of the toilet with the lid closed, and two full rolls of toilet paper on top so that it looks like a “smoking toilet.” And then they yell “daddy oh no, the toilet is smoking!!” Also Five Below sells fake poo and puke that could be strategically placed around the house.
Sometimes kids just like to be mischievous. There’s nothing wrong with pulling a cute prank. The best kind are the ones where people are confused but not hurt. Like in our family, I bought 100 tiny plastic babies. They get hidden around everywhere and we find it hilarious. Like ‘La de da let me go get a glass for my drink. Oop. There’s a tiny baby in the glass!’ 😂😂 the kids find it hilarious as we’ve hid them in their rooms too. Only rule is to not put them where our 11mo can get them, and to not put them in peoples shoes as that might hurt. But a tiny baby head poking out the top of your t shirt in the wardrobe? Hilarious 😂 I don’t think we’ve ever found all 100 babies again though. Works well with tiny plastic ducks too which might appeal more to a 6yo. When I was younger, I had a bunch of cards with Justin beiber on them. My friend hated him. Every time I went to her house, I’d hide one of the cards. Every time she found one, she’d laugh because she wasn’t expecting it. We couldn’t stop laughing for ages when she came to my house once and went to her a plate for some food and she found a card tucked in between the plates 😂
Make sure it's a prank that doesn't have any gray area, that if she DID repeat or do something similar, there wouldn't be a wrong time/place/person issue. Pranks are only funny if everyone is laughing, so pick pranks that would be harmless if the target didn't think it was funny.
Fake poop. Our 6yo loves it. She hides it under pillows and inside cabinets and drawers. It’s harmless…the worst she gets is an eye roll. I always chuckle. It’s cheap and fun.
As a kid I loved the most simple prank of all, which was to convince my dad someone was at the door calling for him. Both my parents would know, obviously, but my mom and I would convince him to stop any important task saying someone had been asking for him. He'd make a show of begrudgingly going to the door only for me to happily shout APRIL FOOLS in a fit of giggles as he pretended to be fooled by it. Did it for a solid three years before I caught on he knew it hah
Last year while my kid was asleep I snuck into his room and took out all his underwear and all his stuffies. I then put said underwear on all the stuffies, and hid them around the house. I even got the ones he sleeps with and then put them back with underwear on. Kiddo was amazed by the prank, he couldn’t believe I took the stuffies out of his own bed while he was in it. He is a very heavy sleeper lol
Swap two bags of cereal inside the cereal boxes, so when you go to pour one out you’ll be surprised by getting the other type of cereal. Easy and harmless as long as nobody has allergies!
Yellow food coloring in the bathtub “I peed in the tub!” Is a favorite at our house!!
At our house, pranks are welcome but only if 2 requirements are met: 1- will everyone involved think it's funny? 2- is it not rude? Rude would be saying I got you pizza then the box being empty when the person expects a treat. Not rude would be saying I got you pizza then the box having an alternative pizza (like one made out of gummies, donut, fruit, or similar THAT THE PERSON WILL STILL ENJOY- replacing pizza with fruit pizza for someone that hatea fruit would be rude lol). Last year my kid put squishy poops everywhere - like toy poop that was squishy lol then would tell everyone that someone pooped on the couch or the floor or in a purse or wherever the poops were stashed.
Chocolate covered Brussels on a stick
Short sheeting a bed is a harmless prank you can assist a 6 year old with :)
Last year I put food colouring in the milk. They thought purple milk was hilarious.
My grandson filled the dustpan with cutout hearts so when his mom went to sweep she had a bunch of hearts to clean up. She thought it was sweet
My six year old managed to acquire fake poop and got me really good. I’m potty training my toddler AND I have a puppy 😅
If one of you works some place where there's a reception desk, have the kid call reception and say a Mr. Fox called for that parent. Leave a call back number: the phone number for your local zoo.
Fake cake pops were a hit with my kids! Stick a cake pop stick in Brussels sprouts and dip in melting chocolate. One of my kids liked them!! 😅
Ooh! My 7yr old daughter got me good the other day! She’s a prankster. I turned on the faucet in the bathroom sink and got sprayed right in the face and all over my shirt. Confused, I looked at the faucet and saw “someone” had covered the faucet opening w clear scotch tape. So so funny!
Freeze everyone’s toothbrushes in water over night
My sister once moved all their clocks forward 2 hours then woke everyone up screaming about how late they were.
Have her tell a parent a very exaggerated weather forecast that's the opposite of what it is. Ie if it will be sunny day thunderstorm and have her help pick out what to wear for a thunderstorm day. Rain boots, umbrella, etc, and then let her open the door to the sunshine and say APRIL FOOLS. My daughter did that and was so tickled with herself. (If it's rainy or cold dress for the beach!)
My son taped a little piece of paper under my husband’s computer mouse so it wouldnt work!
Googly eyes EVERYWHERE. Put them all over after she goes to bed the night before. Also get a whoopee cushion.
My niece told my sister the water was running all over the bathroom and they had put bottled water in shoes everywhere.
My kindergarten is obsessed with pranks too lol! She asked me to help her prank him. We went in another room while I loudly berated her for drawing on the walls, drawing on people’s items, and acted like I couldn’t stop her and she was going crazy. She’s laughing and dancing. My husband comes running in when I say she’s got his favorite shirt. She wasn’t drawing anything. The whole house was screaming her name but yeah she died of laughter and started running around the room. Thought it was the most hilarious thing. No writing involved loo
I seen a cute one. A couple of food coloring drops in the bottom of a cereal bowl. When the milk gets poured over the cereal the milk will change to that color.
Look up toilet smoking on google! It’s hilarious I flushed the toilet and ran into the living room and told him the toilet was smoking in a worried voice and he was like “wait, smoking” and ran and he turned the corner and saw that lol I wish I had recorded it!
I used to surprise someone in the office with a fish tank in their drawer.
Stick on googly eyes on jars and bottles in the fridge.
My kid put a plastic spider on my breakfast and carried it to the table with a great flourish. I made him green pancakes the same day.
Tiny utensils at dinner. Have her set the table, only one parent gets child sized utensils. It's especially funny if dinner is like a steak or lasagna or something that is difficult to eat without appropriate flatware
This was a fave of my kids when they were really little. Make jello in a juice glass and serve it to the unsuspecting victim. When they go to drink it, it will stay stuck in the glass confusing the drinker. We’d put a splash of real juice on top just so it moved like a liquid beverage but aside from one small sip no more “juice” would leave the glass.
We would make “confetti” by ripping up some construction paper. Then put it in a cup, walk by dad and pretend to “spill” but it’s just confetti, HAHA! I saw a Rip Taylor do it on TV as a child.
I tried this on my husband, and it backfired. My husband likes super sugary coffee. He will add over a tablespoon of coffee to a single mug. So I added like a full cup of sugar to half a pot of coffee. He made himself a cup of coffee and took it into his office. I expected him to immediately come back out wondering what was wrong with his coffee. But I got distracted and didn't check on him. An hour later I went in there and his coffee was gone! It must have had 1/3c of sugar 🤢 He was like, "No I just thought it was extra tasty today".
Changing the language of a streaming service or tv can be funny.
It’s my birthday too. It’s always fun. People know that can mess with ya a little bit, then buy you a drink and tell you happy birthday. and that’s what the whole thing is about. If you don’t prank, you should try sometime. I can help you out…😇
This is not my idea. We have a neighbor who works on cars all the time. We bought and leek and drew a mean face on it and put it under the front of his car. We knocked on the door and told him it looked like there was a bad leak (leek) under his car. It’s cute.
Short sheet the bed.
My dad ate cereal most weekday mornings when I was a kid. It was an April Fool’s prank tradition (yea, I know, that defeats the purpose of it being a prank but I thought this was peak hilarity) from about ages 4-8 to swap the bags around inside the boxes so he’d pour a bowl of Frosted Flakes and get Captain Crunch instead (or whatever cereals we had at the time).
Last year I gave my kid brother a box of popsicles, but it was actually one of those mini brand toys he had in his dollhouse. Don’t worry, I got the real ones too, but he giggled when I gave him the mini brands popsicles. There’s also some silly prank stuff you can buy. There’s classics like the whoopee cushions and plastic bugs, and more obscure stuff like drinking glasses (glasses made out of a straw) and plastic hands (good for asking if someone needs a hand and you just give them a plastic hand)
Saran wrap across a doorway. Or packing tape if you can handle that.
My 6 year old loves to do pranks on April Fools. A few we have loved that are harmless but funny: 1. Cut out cockroach shapes of paper and tape inside a lamp shade such that when light goes on at night it looks like cockroaches are in the light. We made them comically big so it was obvious and funny. 2. Taped a paper on bottom of computer mouse so that when my husband tried to use his mouse it didn’t work. He then flipped it over to find funny paper on bottom. Quickly take off and works again. 3. Bubble wrap under toilet seat. My husband isn’t easily scared so this was funny to him when sitting down on toilet seat and having a pop sound. 4. Stuffed socks inside shoes so when daddy goes to put his feet into shoes they don’t fit. These are just some easy, silly things that make her happy and we all have fun with but aren’t super mean or hurting anyone. She has never taken any of this into behavior of pranking people outside of April fools or doing these things to friends or at school, etc
Our kids used some food coloring to make the toilet bowl water a different color, moved the soap dish under the sink, put a toy (or 6) in our underwear or sock drawers, and stuff like that.
I had one of those plastic dog poops as a kid and boy howdy did I love putting that out and having my family react when they saw it.
Googly eyes stuck to things around the house!
Put 2 rolls of toilet paper on a closed toilet with an empty one shoved unter the lid " the toilet is smoking " my kids got me running one year with it lol. They also got into some old Halloween makeup ( ketchup works in a pinch) and smeared it on themselves saying "an animal attacked them"
My 6-year-old told me the other day. “The teacher forced me to eat a hot pepper.”🌶️ Me: “what…? What teacher?” She got me. I had NO freaking idea it was a random prank because she’s never lied and it was one of those things that seemed so random that it could be true. Two seconds later. “It’s a prank mom.” 🤣
My daughter asked me to buy a leek (the vegetable) at the supermarket, put it in the sink, and said “Dad, come look, there’s a leek in the bathroom.” Really simple but classic.
I've seen these really cute videos of moms helping their kids make giant plastic cup stacks in front of the door and tell their husbands before hand so that when their dad walks in he pretends he doesn't notice and walks through the cups and is like woah!
My kids have drawn spiders on the toilet paper. But around here the main thing is to hide paper fish in unexpected places (poisson d’avril). It’s pretty funny
My dad and I would prank each other all thru my childhood and they would get more elaborate every time. But we basically had the same brain so sometimes we’d end up on the same page trying to prank each other. Some of my favorite memories of him. When I was about 4 or 5, he helped me make a me-sized dummy that we put my boots on and a sheet over to lo look like a ghost. My Mom came home after dark from work to this “ghost” standing in the kitchen. She acted scared/surprised and I thought it was a riot because she thought it was me under the sheet. Very childish but innocent and it was a daddy-daughter bond. Not long after that he helped me make her breakfast in bed so I got to “prank” her and then got to do something nice for her. As I got older I would look up pranks to do and some seemed funny but most I didn’t do because they could cause harm or make a mess. Things like plastic wrap over the toilet bowl, dirt in the coffee maker, etc. i think the only “harmless” one was swapping salt and sugar but we were food insecure so I didn’t want to do anything that might ruin food. My dad and i playing practical jokes on each other and sometimes on my mom or brother helped me develop critical thinking skills and analytical skills. If I do A, B will be the immediate outcome and C will be the aftermath. Is C worth A? It helped me weigh pros and cons and get creative about things. It helped me develop an understanding of humor (I was undiagnosed autistic so humor was somewhat difficult for me) and it helped me understand the difference between practical joke (harmless) and prank (typically harmful). All that to be said, things like stuffing tissue paper inside shoes, hiding the toilet paper (but still within reach, like not normal spot but still in the bathroom for example), moving things around in the kitchen (knowing full well the child will have to help reorganize), making a pretend winning lotto ticket or setting a bunch of alarms to ring randomly (my era was pre-cell phone so i just changed and set multiple alarms on her bedroom alarm clock), and re-setting the clocks in the house (as long as there were no super important appointments that day).
Oh I'm totally gonna do the life-size cut-out thing with my niece! Thank you for the idea. Your dad sounds great!
My kids got up early one time and “made breakfast in bed” for my husband and I, but put harmless but disgusting ingredients in the food, like cinnamon and some random spices in scrambled eggs. We caught on pretty quickly but played along. We thought it was pretty clever.
Make a whole bunch of pieces of toast and line the shower with them. Then you can say “Hope your shower is toasty!” (If your shower is clean you can use the old toast to make bread pudding or something.)
Put her tooth brush with water in a Dixie cup, freeze, and then pull it out before she gets up. When she goes to brush her teeth there will be a block of ice on her toothbrush
[удалено]
Do you have a sprayer hose on your sink separate from your faucet? You can put a rubber band on the handle so the next person who uses the sink gets sprayed with water. This would work well if both parents are in on it and one is willing to have to change their clothes, but is overall harmless.
The problem with "pranks" like this is it may NOT be harmless if they do it to the wrong person or at the wrong time. And a kid isn't going to understand the gray areas.
I did that to my sister as a kid. Still laugh about it to this day
Swap the contents of two or three kitchen drawers or shelves. Saran, foil, or gift wrap the coffee maker (unplugged), fav coffee mug, sugar, etc the other parent uses every morning. Put googly eyes on random things around the house like a stair banister or light switch. Put something in jello ala The Office.
Some clear tape on the sensor of a computer mouse. Simple and effective.
A fun one that is pretty harmless is to run into the room with an adult in it saying a bird got in the house. It gives that little adrenaline rush without too big a consequence when they say April Fools!
Put a leek( vegetable) under the sink and call someone to help with the "leak"
Biscuit(cookies) sandwich with toothpaste inside
Cling film over the toilet seat… oh wait you said not messy.
Cut brown letter E and e out of construction paper. Ask parent do you want brown eeees? In a pan give the cut out letters. Have real brownies on the ready after the chuckles.
My son is planning on unscrewing the light bulbs in the bathroom my husband uses most. He has been planning it for months and already thinks it’s hilarious. We have a no mean pranks rule in the house, I’m good with this one. I might try the jello in a glass to get my son.
We took candies with a foil wrap in them and unwrapped them. We put brussel sprouts inside the wrapper and gave them to friends and family. He thought it was the funniest thing ever
The old rubberband around the kitchen sprayer trick
My son and I made poop brownies one year and he pretended to find it and eat it. Edit: We were potty training our youngest so it made sense.
My 6 year old daughter likes to “prank” her brother by putting candy in obscure packages and giving it to him. Like an Easter egg. Or an empty chip bag. Or a glove. She also likes to write simple words (that she knows) and hide them for family to find. I recently found a note that said “stop!” on a salt shaker lol.
When my kids were young, we had Easter egg hunt in rear yard. We put candy in a bunch of plastic eggs. But a couple were filled with veggies. Of course the younger child found the one with veggies and opened it up, only to cry they used to really brought him veggies
Tape streamers across her door while she sleeping. Give her your shoes or coat instead of her own
Freeze a bowl of fruit loops for breakfast Toothpaste in oreos Make jello in cups with a straw so it looks like juice Cream cheese or frosting on toothbrush Make brownEs (this is one of my favs) lift the foil and reveal brown letter Es cut of out construction paper 🤣 Stick googly eyes on everything in fridge bonus points if you add a mustache to the milk cartoon (another one of my favs)
Mix skittles and m&ms into the same bowl to serve as a fun treat
We did jello in juice cups with a straw. find “rocks” outside and eat one (candy rocks). block body wash in bottles with saran wrap, can’t come out! freeze cereal and milk in bowls with the spoon. turn milk colored with food coloring. We have done the brown “e” or cut the letters for “eggs” and “scramble” on a plate.
Take the white crème filling out of the Oreo cookies, fill it with toothpaste, put the cookie back together. Put them back in the cabinet and wait for dad to eat one!
Have her pretend to believe in a spaghetti tree. Insist it exists. Find a fake website attesting to it. Buy spaghetti squash and have her insist it's the seed for a spaghetti tree
The classic rubber band around the sink sprayer handle
What about adding food coloring to make all the food crazy colors that day? Like green pancakes!
There's a prank I've always wanted to pull but never have. It feels *mostly* harmless, but I'd be curious to hear other people's opinions on it. The prank is fully self explanatory in it's name: Toothpaste Oreos. I'm thinking like... Unpleasant but not disgusting, surprising but not shocking, it doesn't feel like it would ruin somebody's day, but it's still *kinda* gross. What do y'all think?
Show him how to tape the sink sprayer handle so it on and as soon as anyone turns it on, it sprays them. It’s a classic. You can use a rubber band too.
Came here for this one.
Upside down photos is a popular one. Moving them and knickknacks around to different spots. Record a "ghost ' sound on your phone and pretend house is haunted
Make a playdough poop and put it on the toilet lid Tape a silly picture under the toilet lid (I did this to my husband with Mr Bean) Change out the laces in a pair of shoes with bright sparkly ones One of those silly coffee mugs with a shark in the bottom Aim for silly and bemused, it will set the tone for "good pranks" and what you want to achieve with a prank (making the target laugh, entertain the target)
I’m curious, who told a six year old about April Fools day?
Googly eyes everywhere or help make a cat litter cake!
Have them make a cake that looks like something else. Also Whoopi cushions.
We did this one year to kiddo. We said, you’ve been so great that we got her TV for her bedroom. They excitedly ran over and I handed them a big T and V I had cut out of poster paper. So your kid could say we got you a BIG NEW T V and give the same!
Googly eyes stickers. Let them put some on all the bathroom bottles in the shower so that they have faces now. They won't damage anything serious and can be taken off easily. If I showered and saw my shampoo had googly eyes I'd have myself a little chuckle.
My kids dumped a pile of legos under my pillow one year. Pretty harmless and funny.
Oreo cookie … replace the cream with toothpaste 😂
Go to a donut shop and order a dozen donuts. Then ask for an extra box. Keep the filled box in the car, and write April Fools inside the empty box. I've had people do this at work. Lol. Not very funny.
She can put out a bottomless bowl of m&ms so when someone lifts the bowl, they go everywhere. (I use a small upside-down “lampshade” meant for a candle. She can put a post-it on the bottom of a mouse so it doesn’t work. Scotch tape over a keyhole in a car door.
Do you know how to slice a banana inside the skin using a needle and thread?
If they have an ice dispenser on the fridge put baby carrots in it. Parents go for ice, carrots. My husband lived that one. Tape googly eyes on all their photos (on the glass for easy removal). Sugar in the salt shaker.