Summer vacation starts this week for us. I can’t figure out where this past school year went, but I’m excited about the slower-paced weeks ahead of us. To be honest, usually by mid-July, I’m over the whole summer vacation thing and I’m ready to get my kids back to school! Some families do really well with a fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants kind of summer, but I’ve found we need some kind of routine to keep everyone relatively happy and healthy. Interspersed with short day camps and other scheduled activities, we’ll strive to fulfill one request per week from my kids’ “summer bucket list.”
What’s a Summer Bucket List?
A few weeks ago, I sat down with my sons and we made a list together of the activities they’d most like to do over summer vacation. Most of their suggestions are relatively easy to make happen and not all that expensive. In addition to parks and the swimming pool, they would like to see a movie, go to one of those bounce house gyms and go to the zoo. They’re also really into a kids’ chemistry set that my parents sent last year. So, creating a volcano made the short list, too. Who wouldn’t want to build a volcano?! And of course, we’ll be making lots of trips to the library. (That wasn’t on their list, but it’s on mine!)
Make a Quiet Time Imagination Bucket
My kids can play hard, but I think it’s also important to schedule quiet time during the day to let the body rest and the imagination soar. My kids no longer nap, so one fun way to help them settle into an hour or so of quiet time each day is to create an “imagination bucket” for each child. I got this idea from my neighbor and I think it’s a clever way to help inspire creative thinking in a quiet space.
Want to try it? Throw in a variety of art supplies (use your judgement based on the age of your child), magazines, pipe cleaners, coloring books, construction paper and stickers. Have your kids go to their own separate spaces, set the timer for 30 or 45 minutes and tell them when the timer goes off you want to see what they each created from their buckets. Use the imagination bucket only at quiet time and switch out the contents from time-to-time.
Do you create a routine in your summer days or do you prefer to just take each day as it comes?
Image(s): FreeDigitalPhotos.net
