Summer Fun!

For some reason I decided to be all ambitious and plan activities for the kids all summer.  Perhaps I was a little high on Pintrest or maybe I thought that it would earn me mother of the year- either way I put together a little calendar for the kids to see what we have planned.  The hope is they will see what we are doing and not ask me a million times what we're doing that day and also that with this in mind I can do the fun activity and then they'll let me do my own thing.  And it'll work right?  <cough>  And it'll keep the 2 youngest from fighting all day right? <cough>.  We'll see.

This is the plan- 

• Mondays are Make It Monday and we'll do a craft.  I actually have the crafts arranged by theme because we'll do more than one since it takes the kids 1.2 minutes to do a craft.
• Tuesdays are Tasty Tuesday and we'll cook.  I thought it would be good to teach them proper cooking techniques and also go over volume and measurements with them at the same time.
• Wednesdays are Wisdom Wednesday where we'll learn something new.  I originally had themes but didn't like the ones I picked, so on the file I have a link to it doesn't have much for this one.  I'm thinking of doing more science related stuff.  You can go to my "mad scientists" board on pintrest for some ideas.
• Thursdays are Travel Thursdays and we'll go someplace outside the home- like a park or the woods or lake or train station.
• Fridays are Freaky Fridays which basically means anything goes.  We'll do things like outdoor games or ninja training camp.

 I printed the calendar at Staples because I am now obsessed with their engineering prints- they're like $1.80 for and 18x24 print and you can do pictures.  It's just black and white but everything is more fun supersized.

Most of these ideas are on my pintrest boards under "summer", "kids activities" and "kids chefs" if you'd like pictures.

Here's the calendar I made:

 And here is the "plan" file with what we'll be doing.
Summer Fun List 

I seriously must've been high when I made this to have a travel Thursday right after we got back from Minnesota and right before my son's birthday.  Oh well.  The boys are super excited and that's all that really matters :)

Link to my pintrest: Melissa's Pintrest



 

Kid Crafts

I love to craft but unfortunately my kids aren't always so obliging to my project needs.  They always want to "help" which isn't always so useful.  I try to find things they can do that will give them an activity to do- like sort paper by color or pattern, cut scrap paper (which is a very good pre-writing activity), or have them use scraps and old stamps to make their own artwork.  The key is to let them express their creativity- because let's face it, that's exactly what YOU love to do too!

I thought this activity was such a great idea!  This was at my son's preschool activity night.

We made the kids into "pizza" by rolling the dough (the kids) around then topped them with shredded paper "cheese", checkers "pepperoni", and a squirt of water "oil".  Yes this would be incredibly messy (nothing a little vacuum can't fix)- but incredibly fun!  You could use old scraps of paper and let the kids make different toppings to top each other with. And with your old scraps being used you can make way for new paper :)  

Sometimes I feel a little guilty when my projects get in the way of having fun with my kids and doing crafts with them allows me to get my creative juices flowing and allows me to spend some time with them doing something they're always dying to do anyway.  And then as a bonus you get awesome mom points for doing a fun activity with them.