Summer Fun! Kid Activities & Free Printables

I am so excited to share this with you!!!

I was inspired by lists of fun summer activities to do with my kiddos, like this one and this one, but of course I had to remake it so that it was just the way I wanted it If you don’t have a perfectionist and/or crafty bend, feel free to just use this one as is!

Here’s what it looks like, all set up and pretty above my dining room table:

I’ve uploaded the pdf as well as the original publisher file (which you obviously can only open if you have publisher). I made them 3.5” square and mounted them onto 4” square pieces of scrapbook paper that I already had (7 sheets of 12 x 12 paper). I used regular yarn and mini clothespins from Joann’s to attach them. I have a DONE envelope to put them in when we’re done. Here are the fonts that I used:

• Aardvark Café
• Cool Dots
• Delius Swash Caps
• Eraser Dust
• First-Grader

I also made a supplies list for myself, broken down by activity, as well as cost, if any. Of course, there are a handful of activities that are local to my neck of the woods, but you can either just toss those or replace them with ones in your area. I’ve also linked to the resources that I found to actually complete these lovely activities.

Crafts / Cooking

1. Make Sidewalk Paint
• Cornstarch
• Food Coloring
2. Potato Stamps
• Potatoes
• Paint
• Knife
• Paper
3. Make Popsicles
• Dixie Cups
• Popsicle Sticks
• Yogurt
• Strawberries
• Lemon Juice
• Sugar
4. Paint with Pudding
• Pudding
• Muffin Tins
• Paper
5. Finger Paint
• Sugar
• Salt
• Corn Starch
• Food Coloring
• Jars for paint
6. Make a Bird Feeder
• Peanut Butter
• Plastic bags
• Bird Seed
• Plastic spoons
• Twine
7. Kool-Aid Soda Pop
• Kool Aid
• Sugar
• Bubble Water
8. Make Dessert
9. Make Cupcakes for Neighbors
• Cake mix
• Frosting
• Sprinkles
• Printed topper
• Ziplock bags
10. Snack Necklace
• Pretzels
• Cheerios
• Other snack foods with holes
11. Make Flubber
• Elmer’s Glue
• Borax
• Food Coloring
12. Make Play Dough
• Flour
• Salt
• Cream of Tartar
• Kool Aid
13. Caramel Popcorn
• 1/2 cup unpopped corn kernels (10-12 cups popped)
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
14. Craft from Magazine
15. Make Shirts (I mean decorate some with fabric markers)
16. Make Ice Cream
17. Bubble Snake
• Plastic Water Bottle
• Sock
• Rubber band
• Super Giant Bubble Solution
• Dawn
• Cornstarch
• Baking Soda
• Secret Ingredient from link
18. Make Cookies for Neighbors
19. Bathtub Painting
• Clear Glycerin Soap
• Tempera Paint
• Long skinny ice cube tray

Outings that may or may not cost money

1. Picnic
2. Get a new clothing item
• $10
3. Swim
• $10
4. Movie at Theater
• $5
5. McDonalds Playland
• $10
6. Nature Scavenger Hunt
• Printable
• Collection bag
7. Get Slurpees
• $5
8. Bowling
• $10
9. Zoo
10. Camping
11. Bike to Park
12. Fireworks
13. Splash Park
14. Donuts
15. Go For a Hike

Things to do around our house

1. Campout in Backyard
2. Play a Board Game
3. Movie & Popcorn
4. Kids Plan Dinner
5. Ride Bikes
6. Lemonade Stand
• Lemon Juice
• Sugar
• Cups
• Signs
• Table
7. Learn a New Game
8. Blanket Fort
9. Water Balloons
• Water Balloons
• Bucket
10. Breakfast for Dinner
11. Paper Airplanes
12. Swim at Our Pool
13. Water Bottle Fight
14. Treasure Hunt
• Clue Cards
• Envelopes and Plastic Eggs
• Candy
• Prizes

Things specific to us here in Fort Collins (although you might be able to find something similar where you live)

1. Farmer’s Market
2. Ride the Trolley
• $6
3. TCBY
• $10
4. Lee Martinez Farm
• $3 x 3 = $9
• Pony Rides $5 x 2 = $10?
5. Mail a Letter to Maria (our sponsored child through WorldVision.org)
6. Discovery Museum
7. Swimming at City Park
8. Ice Cream Truck
9. Noontime Notes
10. Walk to the Mullins
11. Drive In Movie
12. IMAX at Discovery Museum

I also was thinking that since at least half of these aren’t necessarily summer-only activities, once summer is over, I’ll be putting these in a box or something to pull out once in a while when we need something besides our usual to do.

Also, please don’t be intimidated or think that I’m some kind of super mom!! I can guarantee that we will NOT be doing ALL of these this summer. I just wanted some ideas of some things to do so that we don’t feel like our entire summer slipped away. Some days we might do several of these, but some days (or weeks), we might only get to one or two or none for that matter.

A few others things we’re doing also:

• Going to as many parks in our town as possible. According to the city’s website, there are 38 parks with playgrounds.
• Doing several summer reading programs including the one from our library and and a few from this list.
• Nate is signed up for a music class as well as an Amazing Athletes class through the city.
• Vacation Bible School! The kids are beyond thrilled and eagerly anticipating VBS

I have a pinterest board just for summer too, so we might do a few more things from there, but who knows?

What are you doing this summer?

~S

In case you missed it in all those words, here are the download files:

• pdf  OR
• publisher file (which you obviously can only open if you have publisher

Here are the fonts that I used:

• Aardvark Café
• Cool Dots
• Delius Swash Caps
• Eraser Dust
• First-Grader

Wordless Wednesday–Tour De Parks

I’ve decided that we’re going to go to as many different parks as we can this summer. According to the city’s website, there are 38 parks with playgrounds. So far, we’ve been to three different ones this week!

You can follow our #tourdeparks adventure on Instagram too :-)

Here’s a few random pictures from our park adventures this week:

~S

Linking up at:

Wordless Wednesday–Sidewalk Art

Done by my aspiring artist, who is 6.

~S

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Wordless Wednesday–Shane Praying

As we were singing our mealtime prayer the other day, I look over and see Shane doing this:

Aw, how cute!

~S

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Tot School / B4FIAR–Corduroy

 

Nathanael is currently 46 months. Tilly is currently 40 months.

We haven’t done anything for tot school in about four weeks. We had an Easter party for all the kids in our family and the one we co-op with, then had three weeks off for packing and vacationing. I was pleasantly surprised how well the kids did after having that long off!

This week, we read Corduroy and A Pocket for Corduroy, both classics that are so easy to do with preschoolers because there are so many choices for activities!  Because I just have the two tot-schoolers now, I’m not as careful in my planning. Usually I go online the night before and print a bunch of stuff, and then we just do whatever we feel like doing for that day. Here’s a few of what we chose to do:

Dot painting a brown bear from Making Learning Fun

Playing Bear Roll and Stamp from PreK Pages

Prewriting practice from Homeschool Creations

Fine motor skills using Counting Bears, Easy Grip Tweezers, and ice cube trays. This one was tricky for them, but they persevered. I did not say they had to do any kind of pattern or specific color, so it was funny to see what they ended up with:

Nate ended up doing this pattern for the whole tray. Tilly ended up doing a bunch of purple ones, then gave up and just did whatever she grabbed. 

Next we played a color recognition game using my Photo Stacking Blocks and Education Cubes color inserts. I highly recommend these blocks, especially if you have any boys. Adding an active component, even if it’s just a little bit, helps Nate so much! For the game, I used the color cards that matched the counting bears plus a wild card that had them all on it. I had them take turns rolling the cube down the hall, then running to see what color it was. They then had to grab a matching bear from the bin and put it anywhere in their ice cube tray. Again, hilarious, because Nate had to stick them all in a row, all on their bottoms. Tilly just put them wherever. When a wild card came up, Tilly always picked purple, and Nate picked whatever one he grabbed first.

Our snack was teddy grahams, which is not something I usually buy, so Nate loved them! I made simple papers that had the number 1-6. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was going to do with them when I made them, but after seeing that they both needed practice with number recognition and counting, I thought up this little activity. I gave them each 21 bears in a snack cup. They then had to lay out their papers, (which is why they’re not in order), and place the correct number of bears on each page. They got to eat them afterward, of course.

We watched Corduroy from this Scholastic Storybook Treasures that Grandpa bought the kids a few years ago while they ate their snack.

We did some pattern completing from Homeschool Share. I love Nate’s facial expression in this picture :-) Also, notice in most of the pictures from today that he’s wearing a bag. He told me it was his purse, I told him it was his briefcase. So now he has a briefcase that he takes to “work” everyday. He told me it has his lunch and his coffee in it, heehee!

We then read A Pocket for Corduroy and made a Corduroy bear using the templates from Serving Pink Lemonade.

I asked them each if they wanted their own name or Corduroy on the nametag inside the pocket. Nate picked his name, Tilly picked Corduroy.

Overall, a fun and engaging unit!

Oh, and this is what happens when you don’t put away the supplies right away…

This teeny tot is too smart for me! I don’t know what there will be left to teach him when he actually gets to tot school age :-)

Links to some of the printables/resources that I found:

* Homeschool Share

*Homeschool Creations

*Serving Pink Lemonade – Great template with bear and overalls

*We Can Do All Things – Early Learning with Counting Bears 

~S

Speak Up Saturday–Book Review–Jennifer: An O’Malley Love Story

Ohmygoodness! When I got the review copy on this novella, I was ecstatic! Good thing it was short, because I don’t think my husband or my kids would have been very happy with me for ignoring them for more than a day :-)

Jennifer: An O'Malley Love Story (or go here to get the ePub version right now, before the official release date!)

From the Publisher:

It's a summer of change for Jennifer O'Malley.
The busy physician has a pediatrics practice in Dallas, Texas, and meeting and falling in love with surgeon Tom Peterson is adding a rich layer to her life. She's sorting out how to introduce Tom to her family--she's the youngest of seven--and thinking about marriage.
She's falling in love with Jesus too, and knows God is good. But that faith is about to be tested, and in a way she didn't expect. The results will soon transform her entire family.

Why was I so excited to get this book? It completes the O’Malley series by Dee Henderson. This series was one of the first ones I read after getting a relationship with Jesus. This novella is about the only one of the O’Malley siblings that didn’t get a full length book, and for good reason which I will not divulge because it is part of the plot of the series.

What appeals to me about the series? The characters are believable and their emotional struggles are real. They are fun to follow along because they are more, well, celebrity for lack of a better word. I mean, they all have fairly high profile lives, but it’s fun that way. If you’re going to read a book, might as well make it something that is fantastical.

The part that I enjoy the most, however, is their stories of faith. How each one, especially Jennifer as told in this novella, come to know their Savior is powerful and awesome. Jennifer is the one who prompts the others to examine their lives and what they really believe, so to learn how her conversion came about was great.

I read this book in one evening, good thing it was only a novella! It prompted me to want to read the entire series again :-)

~S

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from NetGalley as part of their book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Some links are affiliate links, which I may receive a small compensation from in connection with their affiliate program.

Wordless Wednesday–SNOW!

Last week, the beach. This week, SNOW! Thank you, Colorado spring, for the beautiful, and freezing, homecoming present.

~S

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