Monday, January 28, 2013

summer fun ideas

my sister, melissa mentioned to me a few weeks ago about how a friend of hers made a list of things to do during the summer and each day the kids would pick something. I decided this was a great idea because trying to come up with something to do each day can be tough, but if you don't put some kind of effort into it you could end up sitting around a lot more than you intend do (maybe that's just me), and that leads to boredom and boredom leads to bad attitudes, cranky people and a multitude of other not-so-good things. so, today i started making a list. i came up with surprisingly quite a few things in a relatively short period of time. so, the plan is to print these all out, cut them up into little strips and put them into some kind of "fun jar" that we can pick from everyday. i'm kind of excited about this.

MY LIST:

write letters/thank you notes (color pictures to send, etc) for family members, friends, whoever
movie day
park day
sprinklers/water fun day (water balloons, squirt guns, etc . . . maybe we will combine that one with "washing-the-'burb' day", haha)
fort making day
baking day
board game day
lake day
swim at a friend's
craft day
beach day
go on a hike
backyard campout
hike & seek/outside game day
library day (they really like going to the library)
play date (i may have to rig this one so they pick it on the right day, getting it set up with a friend)
have a picnic
go out to eat
bike riding day (we'll see about this one, since the two little ones can't ride bikes and i don't have a trailer...)
dance party
unbirthday party (we don't have any birthdays between may and november, so this would be really fun.)
art day (drawing, coloring, painting, sidewalk chalk, etc)
scavenger hunt
doorbell ditch day (thinking we could spend half the day making things and then deliver them to various peoples of the ward, or possibly something non-food. we'll see.)
service day (similar to previous, but something more thoughtful and directly personal that, hopefully, fills a need)
play restaurant day (the kids have a little kitchen that they love to "make" things in, so i'm thinking playdoh)

that is 26 things. not too bad, if you think about sundays and paul's days off so we'll do something different in there, plus trips to family and hopefully a camping trip or two).

tell me what you think, or if you have any other ideas. i would love to hear them!

3 comments:

Rebecca Susan said...

We pretty regularly do outside scavenger hunts in the summer. Its easy to make a list of things like, green leaf, pink flower, some kind of seed, etc, but with the ages your kids will be this summer, another really fun one is to make them each a "necklace" of shapes--just yarn with a a few hole-punched shapes strung on to it. Say, a square, a circle, and a heart, and they find things outside (you could do it at a park or something) that are the those shapes--maybe a heart-shaped leaf or a squarish rock. Builds those skills and it a riot with the little ones.

Mel McDonald said...

Science day - vinegar and baking soda rockets. By the way, I'm jealous I can't have a beach day.

Christa said...

i like science day a lot! and i knew you'd be jealous of beach day. :/ wish you could come!