Summer Vacation: Things to do with your children

IMO, the reason many children get bored easily and many parents find themselves at a loss when it comes to their children being on school break is because we have grown accustomed to thinking that putting them in this/that/or the other is a must and that we are *bad* parents for not doing so. That being said....it is OKAY for your children to be with you the majority of time this summer. It is OKAY for your children not to have a schedule whether it be it play dates or a group activity...you are not alone.

And now...the list:

1)Get up early and watch the sun come up.

2)Stay up late and watch the sun go down.

3)Take a walk everyday with your child(ren) even if just for ten minutes.

4)Let them read for hours if they so desire.

5)Head to the library for story time.

6)Go to a place full of various types of nature and allow your children to take pictures of anything and everything. Suggest that they write a story (and please, do not be critical of spelling and grammar errors...just fix them yourself and print it off on the computer or something so they are able to view it in its proper form) about what interested them most. If your child(ren) are too young to write you could have them dictate their thoughts to you.

7)Find a nearby free museum.

8)Bake and cook... a lot! This helps children not only be creative but also reinforces/introduces fraction concepts. A great book is called "Food Art" and it is geared toward younger children and has difficulty levels throughout.

9)Make a small garden together and let them choose the flowers to go into it.

10)Go to the vast array of science sites online and do a weekly and inexpensive or no cost science experiment.

11)Lie on the grass and watch the clouds drifting by.

12)For older children, head to a park with lots of trees and let the climb away.

13)Bike ride through the neighborhood, if it is safe.

14)Linger at the grocery store and do not rush it. Let younger children weigh and help pick out fruits and other goods. Hand your teen $20 and a small list and ask them to find the best value and they can keep whatever is left from the $20.

15)Visit some elderly people in your neighborhood. ***THIS IS NEEDED*** Just the other day we were walking our dog and stopped in to visit an elderly man in our neighborhood whose wife died last year, they had been married for 67 years. He said to me, "Sandy, I am so glad that you all stopped by. Last year, a couple of weeks after my wife died I almost killed myself (he told me that God stopped him). You have to understand that I spent every morning with her for 67 years reading the paper and drinking coffee and then she was gone. I walked to the end of my dock and considered killing myself; I was going to leave my cane there so that everyone would know what happened. Every day after she died, I hoped that someone would knock on my door and visit me." Crying or Very sad We are going to make a visit to him regularly from now on. The kids have visited him on their own before but it was sporadic in nature. Many elderly feel like our neighbor, especially if they have been married for decades. Please, please stop in and visit even if just for a few minutes once or more a week...you can truly make their day!

16)Capture a few insects and do a small study. Start a butterfly garden or ant farm.

17)Draw and/or paint. Do not worry about your driveway...let younger children use that sidewalk chalk or paint.

18)Have an all movie day!

19)Listen to all kinds of music and dance around the house. Another idea here would be to have a THEME week! If you are fortunate enough to have XM or Satellite radio put on the World Zone types or go to the library and borrow a CD. Gear your whole week around an entire country. Try some new dishes. Make paper plate masks of the animals in the country you are visiting. Watch a movie or have books around geared towards that country. Base crafts around the culture you are studying as well. Also, you could make up a passport and travel log and then at the end of summer check out every country you’ve *visited*.

20)Let your little ones and older ones help around the house.

21)Build with legos or geo-magnets.

22)Put seedlings in eggshells with some dirt and watch them grow.

23) If your spouse has a lunch hour, meet them up at the closest park or picnic bench once each week.

24) Have a backwards day! Eat dinner for breakfast, breakfast for lunch, lunch for supper and allow dessert to be eaten first.

25) Allow teens to have a weekly/bi-weekly/or monthly "teen day" and have their friends over for the day and/or night. The *condition* could be that they are responsible for cleaning up when it is all over.

26) Your teen could perhaps could find an older person who shares their passion and *apprentice* under them for the summer, or volunteer within an area that they would enjoy.

27) Have an all day video game day and actually play the games with your teen and/or child(ren) whether you like the game or not.

28) Have a back yard camp-out.

29) If you have more than one child, pick twice a month to where one parent does something ALONE with each of them. It is good for children to do something just with Dad or just with Mom without their sibling(s).

30) Find out what your teens passion is and do everything you can to help them get what they need in order to get started on that course (within reason and of course, affordable).

31) Save for a canoe trip.

32) Go fishing.

33) Go for a hike.

34) Take a day trip to the caves in Merriam.

35) Saturday or Sunday bowling. Many places have inexpensive prices on weekend mornings.

36)DO NOTHING! Let them be alone in their thoughts. They need to be able to find peace and happiness without someone always being the initiator...despite their age and stay at home parents could use a dose of the same thing. Smile You do not have to constantly entertain. You do not always have to have something to do, in fact, doing so restricts and inhabits one’s ability to find tranquility, ponder, be alone in their thoughts, find self-fulfillment, and use imagination.

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Instead of having a once a week culture *study* do it every other week or every three weeks or once a month...that way, there is something to look forward too and it won’t grow old. You could even invite others over for the *final day* and have an inexpensive theme based party. Grab those water balloons and water guns, whatever, and just enjoy.

That is all I can think of for now! LOL

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