School's Out for Summer-50 fun things for the kids to do
ACK!!! I mean how many weeks of summer vacation do our kids get, 8 perhaps 9 weeks? Are you panicking yet? Summer is here and once they eat breakfast they.will.not.be.going.to.school! Perhaps you have summer camps, art workshops, trips to the cabin and a week at grandma's house pre planned, but what can you do to ease the summer blahs for the rest of the season? Fear not brave parent for I will provide for your children a handy list of fabulous things that may keep them busy for minutes, hours and perhaps even days at a time!!
50 awesome things to do!
1. Go birding! Canada is filled with a wide variety of spectacular bird species of all shapes and sizes. Encourage young budding ornithologists to go into the yard open their ears and eyes and look into the skies. Arm yourself with a pencil, binoculars and a great notebook from Buy Canadian first Member EcoJot to log all of your discoveries. Check out bird canada. It is both a great blog with amazing links!
2. Make a house of cards
3. Recreate a famous painting in your own way ( like Big Raven by Canadian artist Emily Carr)
4. Do everything with the 'wrong arm'.
5. Make a doll but only use recycled materials
6. Enter a poetry contest.
7. Make a diorama of your favourite place in the world.
8. Plan an old fashion tea party, be sure to bring your parasol, manners and a pretty dress like the Poppy dress by Sweet Peanut from out member Apples n Oranges.
9. Find all the pens in the house and make sure they all work.
10. Start a summer business
11. Get your grandparents to dish out some dirt about your parents when they were young!
12. Learn how to walk the dog and go over the falls with a yoyo! Buy Canadian First member Toy Maker of Lunenburg makes fabulous Yoyo in great colours. Once you master the tricks you can show off to all your friends.
13. Read a book.
14. Go for a walk and collect anything you wish (perhaps everything yellow, everything round, everything with letters) then create a mini museum with your objects.
15. Make a terrarium.
16. Study an ancient civilization or learn about many with Professor Noggin's Ancient Civilization Card Game.
17. Learn CPR.
18. Discover where the smallest bone in the body is.
19. Raise a tadpole into a frog.
20. Create lists of ten (ten foods I love, ten types of trees in my neighbor hood, ten wierd habits my mom has etc.).
21. Find out how many of your favourite music artist are Canadian.
22. Learn to cook a new dish
23. Bake muffins and deliver to a friend.
24. Teach an old dog a new trick with a little insentive. Give Fido a delicious natural treat made with holsitic ingredients from Fetch'erz Ballz.
25. Observe your neighbourhood everyday at the same time for a week. Log what is the same and what is different daily.
26. Start an ant farm.
27. Be a pirate for a day, ahhrrr or to the plank with Yee.
28. Rewrite the endings to your favourite fairy tales.
29. Set up a lemonade stand.
30. Learn to knit and make scarves to donate to shelters.
31. Create your own world. Make maps, civilizations and local wildlife and plants.
32. Do fish pee? find out!
33. Negotiate a new privilege for yourself.
34. Start a 2000 piece puzzle
35. Spend the day with a younger sibling on purpose.
36. Do a chore without being asked first.
37. Discover why your shadow is longer or shorter depending on the time of day.
38. Make a sun dial.
39. Tie-Dye T-shirts
40. Dedicate a song to someone over the radio.
41. Practise a new skill (skateboarding, catching popcorn in your mouth after you toss it in the air or juggling).
42. Are you prepared? Get your family prepared for an emergency.
43. Create a scavenger hunt for your friends and bake a cake for the winner.
44. Make posters and hang them up in the neighbourhood.
45. See if you can follow a bee back to her hive, be respectful and give her space. Later find out why bees dance.
46. Start a collection.
47. Go fly a kite.
48. Become a master of origami.
49. Plan activities for your whole family.
50. research all the mythical creatures of the world and write a story about your all time favourite!
The possibilities are endless. Fortunately, should all else and your children are still bored and you are there with them, know that the laundry, dishes, dinner, and lawn can wait a few minutes, hours and (this is pushing it) days. Your children grow fast and time is fleeting so forget the work and go hang out with your little muffins. We'll always have dishes but we won't always have our babies as little ones.
