Saturday, July 7, 2012

What Do I Do With Them?

We all need things to do with the kids in the summer.  Here are some of our favourites:

  • bike rides (make the ride to a forest area and let the kids play there for awhile and it will last even longer)
  • picnic in the forest (let the kids play in a creek; bring wipes or an old towel; bring water and snacks and you can enjoy it more!)
  • mini-golf
  • bowling
  • ice-cream
  • library; get out some new books, graphic novels
  • try a new playground in a different neighbourhood
  • give the kids some loonies and take them to the dollar store and let them pick out some arts and crafts activities
  • water play: water gun fights, sprinklers
  • backyard play: bubbles, frisbee, soccer, boomerangs, chalk on deck, hopscotch, bocce, volleyball
  • get some neighbourhood kids together at the school for a game of road hockey or soccer
  • do a neighbourhood walk to a fun destination like a Chapters or a Booster Juice
  • go to a garden centre and enjoy looking at all the plants, flowers, and fountain or water features
  • go to an outdoor market and let the kids pick out some fruit or vegetables or a new kind of cheese
  • balloons can keep kids happy for hours
  • go look for frogs and dragonflies at a nearby pond
  • do a scavenger hunt for outdoor items like pine cones, heart shaped rocks, different kinds of leaves and so on
  • do backyard treat hunts
  • buy a new board game for rainy or really hot days
  • have the kids set up a 'store'; my kids love to do this with anything on hand such as a book store or a snack store (the best one they ever did was a pretend 'spa' in which they - voluntarily - gave me massages!)
  • build a fort
  • beach time - bring lots of sand and water toys to keep them occupied
  • camping
  • try to keep siblings from making each other crazy and make sure you add in some me-time!

1 comment:

Gillian said...

One year we made up Bingo cards of activities--some that I wanted them to do and some that they wanted to do. They had to do one row a week and there were incentives for completing the card.