Is It August Yet?! (Activities for kids that are easy for Mom) by BB
I love summer when my kids are home. We get to wake up later, our routine is typically not as strict. The neighbor kids get to just play. We get to watch the kids play sports and hang with our friends more. I love taking my kids to the zoos, museums, and friends’ houses. But by August we are ready to get back into our school routine. Well the kids haven’t been at the school building since March 5th. That’s totally crazy. Yes school is done, Yes we did do distance learning, but that non-structured time has been going on for SIXTEEN WEEKS!!! We also haven’t been able to go to the zoos, museums, and other friends’ houses. So…the August feeling of structure is in full force.
We are super fortunate to live in a neighborhood with TONS of kids. Within 5 houses of kids who play together often there are 14 kids. It’s amazing…most of the time. This past week though I’m starting to hear, “We’re Bored!” or “They are being mean.” or “He/She is not letting me play.” As much as a blessing a neighborhood with tons of kids is there are times where they have just been together too much. They are like siblings, they spend so much time together, and they know how to get to each other. This summer is unique too because they started spending time together in April. We waited about 3 weeks after spring break and quarantine to hang out together. There also hasn’t been the normal breaks in play like sports, camps, and other activities so their time together has been substantial.
If there is too much idle time the bickering can start. These kids have done some awesome things so far but I feel they now need more direction on what to do. I find they are needing ideas. I figured I wasn’t the only one feeling this way so…here are some ideas and resources to help you out. If you have any good ideas please send them our way! It’s only June so I suspect I might be making more posts like this haha.
Fairy Garden
This week the kids came up with an idea to build a fairy garden. The kids got so into it. Everyone went home and got their fairy stuff to add into it. You guys this is just the cutest thing. The kids also wrote notes to the fairies and the fairies came visited. They’ve used their imagination, collaboration, and art/writing skills. They continue to build it and talk about it. It’s a great activity that the Littles and Bigs can participate in. Bubba, my oldest, was acting like he didn’t believe, until I reaffirmed that I had the fairies phone number. Then he felt like he could get on board and be excited about it too.
If you are interested in building your own fairy garden here are some supplies!
Now after they kiddies built their fairy garden then they wanted to write notes to the fairies. Let me tell you the amount of creativity and imagination involved was beyond cute. They really got themselves excite about the fairies. And by the way, this wasn’t just the girls, the boys were totally into it too!
(Names blacked out for privacy)
Painting Rocks
As I was coming home from yoga in the park I noticed some pretty painted rocks. I have seen them throughout my neighborhood and they do make me smile. My mom also loves painting rocks with my kids and she adds them to her garden. It’s a super fun activity for all ages, young and old. I have a niece who is an artist and her rocks are detailed and beautiful. Then you take Little Man (3 yrs) and it’ll be scribbles but it’ll be colorful scribbles. All of them add beauty. I even found one in the fairy garden the kids made.
At my mom’s house we used the bottles of paint and paint brushes which was super fun but with little kids was a pretty big mess. I decided to give the acrylic paint pens a try and I must say I am a HUGE fan! There was virtually NO mess. The kids were occupied for a couple hours and I also got to spend some time creating as well which I loved so much. My neighbor even got into the action. I wasn’t sure how the pens would go and I’ll be ordering a larger set.
Creating with Sticks and Yarn
I have a dear friend who is beyond creative. She is a home school mom and really is great at coming up with projects for her kids. We recently went to visit her and she told me about a super easy activity that her kids love and they’ve been doing for several years. It’s an activity that is super cheap and they can do it alone. All you need is sticks and yarn. ( I picked this set of yarn because there were tons of colors!) Best of all it uses their creativity and can work together to build cool projects. My friend’s kids built a bow and arrow, teepees, and simple decorating sticks. Little man (3 yrs) absolutely loved doing it! Since I have kids that range in ages 9 to 3 it’s a huge win to have activities that all my kids can participate in!
Baketivity
“Bake Moments That Matter. Tasty recipes, fantastic learning experiences, and memories you’ll treasure-all in one easy-as-pie baking box.”
We love subscription boxes that do the work for us! We also love these types of boxes as gifts. You do the activity and then it’s done. No toys to clean up over and over and over! It’s always nice to have a box around for when I hear, “What can I do?” My kids LOVE to cook and so do I. What I like about these boxes is all the materials are provided for you so it’s an easy peasy activity I don’t have to think up.
Baketivity has subscriptions. Monthly, 3 months, 6 months, and yearly subscription plans can be ordered and canceled anytime you need. You can also just shop and order boxes one time kits. Right now there are tons of great boxes on sale!
Check Baketivity out!!
Kiwi Co
These are more activity boxes and my kids LOVE them. When they show up in the mail my kids love to get it started. What's great about Kiwi Co is there is a box for any age group and interest. We've tried Tinker Crate, Atlas Crate, Kiwi Crate, and Koala Crate. We've literally liked them all!
With Kiwi Co you can buy one box or get a subscription. The subscription comes in 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, and 12 month lengths. We think these are also great gifts to give too. We actually got our first one for Bubba from Binks. Really high quality and fun projects. I really can't say enough about them. Here is a blog post that describes all the boxes.
So here you go with some Super fun and Super easy activities for your kids this summer. They are ongoing and can be worked on throughout the summer. They promote cooperation and imagination!! We’d love the hear from you and see what fun activities you are doing with your kids!!
