I love my kids, but as a stay-at-home, work-at-home mom I cringe a little when school lets out. Seems like we only get a week into summer vacation before the boredom bug strikes! The number one thing I have learned is : Let your kids be messy!!!
When school is over, I pick over their clothes and decide which ones they won’t be wearing when school starts up again at the end of summer. I shorten shirt sleeves and cut off pants legs to make the ultimate I-don’t-care-if-you-ruin-them play clothes!
The kids love to go outside in the morning before it gets too hot. They don’t need expensive toys - the garden hose set on a trickle and some cheap water guns will keep them busy for hours. I let them have old plastic dishes to make mud-pies. The back yard is declared a mud zone, and I stock a tub by the back door with water bottles and ice.
I spray them down with sunscreen and send them outdoors with a warning; the door gets opened ten times, and then it’s time to come in, rinse off and play indoors for a while! This cuts down on wasted air conditioning and keeps track-in mess to a minimum.
Once inside, the fun continues - I can spread a cheap dollar store tablecloth on the kitchen floor and break out the glue, glitter and finger paint! It’s amazing what a bunch of cheap paper plates and popsicle sticks can become when matched with creative little minds.
I watch for picture books at garage sales and flea markets, and hand them out with scissors so the kids can make collages. Little brown paper bags can become puppets with a cutout of an animal pasted on the front! After craft time is over, a big plastic storage box with a lid can hold all the craft supplies and the tablecloth can be bundled into the trash with the scraps.
The fun can continue in the shower or the tub, depending on your kids’ ages. Toddlers can splash in the tub for an hour to soak off the grime, and big kids can experiment with funny foam soap as they shower off the dirt. If you have a nice fluffy towel for each kid and fuzzy robes waiting, they can be ready for bed in a jiffy.
After a quick dinner and tooth-brushing, my kids finally get a short period of TV or computer game time to wind down before bed. All the exercise of the day finally catches up with them, and sometimes they end up asking to go to bed!
This just goes to show you that you don’t have to spend a lot of money to keep your kids from being bored in the summer, and they don’t have to be couch potatoes either!
Sarah P.
Does anyone have an idea how much TV time is good fro a ten year old? we need to have a set amount of time we can stick to, but I don’t know what is fair and healthy.
Hi Leesa,
We only let ours watch for an hour before bed, IF his room is clean and he is all ready (teeth brushed, etc). He is eight, and an hour a day has always been our rule.
Marilee