Thursday, June 17

Essential Summer... a To-Do list for the happy child

















Have you seen this post over at Rae Grant's blog My Little Hen ? I loved and was inspired by it. So much so, in fact, that for days after I read her list, ideas from my own childhood kept popping into my head along with ideas from when my older girls were younger...so many other summery ideas that I just had to start another list to augment Rae's. If you have any additional suggestion as to what should be on this list, don't hesitate to share it in the comments! (This means you, too, Naya, Sodie, and Mado!)


-Blow HUGE bubbles (look at Childhood Magic for an awesome post on a giant bubble tool you can make)

-Make lemonade...all different kinds
.
-Catch a pint of fireflies..and let them go (half the fun is punching holes in the tin lid with a hammer and nail)

-Go caving (or spelunking if you're hard core...its nice and cool in there!)

-Befriend bats (build and hang a bat-house if you can)

-Try out 'sun paint' (we do this around the summer solstice)


-Run through the sprinkler (or make your own Slip-n-slide type thing)

















-Pick fruit at a pick-your-own farm (or in the wild!). We pick wild blackberries and farmed blueberries every year...and peaches if we can

-Make jam with some of your fruit to savor in the winter

-Wash the car with a bucket, hose, and sponge

-Press those beautiful leaves and blossoms (that you can't resist picking) in a flower press or a heavy book

-Make ice cream in a crank-handled ice-cream machine... take turns, earn your treat!

-Go to a carnival (overwhelming for littles, but thrilling for not-so-littles)

















 -Wade in a creek...catch a frog or crawdad if you dare (I'm a scaredy-cat. I scoop them from behind with a net. Toucie and Mado just bare-hand it.)

-Chase butterflies...maybe identify one or two?

-Make a daisy chain (or clover blossom chain, or black-eyed-susan chain, or...)

-Set up a badminton net for impromptu matches (no need for rules! just bat it back and forth)

-Watch the Perseid meteor shower around Aug.12 (we lay on our trampoline in blankets for this)

-Have a campfire...cook over it...sing around it

-Feed hummingbirds

-Make a birdbath and keep it full of fresh water throughout the summer

-Build or create something that works with solar power (like a thermometer, solar oven, sundial....)

-Eat a big, ripe tomato like an apple

















-Kiddie pools (any water vessel, really) + ice cubes = fun....also, water balloons, squirt guns, etc.

-Play horseshoes  ...it is a game that spans multiple generations (or even croquet...I never quite get around to croquet...)



I'll keep adding to this as I think of things. What is on your essential to-do list this summer?

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