Ep: 60 Summertime Fun

Today we are discussing some fun things you can do with your children this summer.

I discuss things we have done as a family from forts, to reading under a tree, to fun active games you can play in the yard, and even going to local stores as well. 


Also make sure to listen to Ep 10 Family Game Time for more ideas for fun games you and your children can play.  

Transcript

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If you think back to your childhood, I'm sure some of your experiences have to do with summer, and all the fun and the freedom that you had in the summertime. So today, I want to be able to provide you with some ideas that you can take and maybe come up with even more ideas just by listening to the ideas that I have for you. And just look at things a little bit differently. Or think about the things you remember about your childhood, to be able to provide those opportunities for your children. I will say that most of the things that I'm mentioning are low cost or no cost. Because if I think back on certain things that I remember, I don't remember Yes, I remember the vacations and things like that. But there are a lot of times where I'm thinking about specific situations where I was with my parents, and doing something son with them out in nature or something like that. So hopefully, these will give you some ideas. The goal is not to have you spending a ton of money this summer, but providing nostalgic experiences that will hopefully last for your children. So the first one, I think most of us moms tend to go here for some respite. And that is going to be the target run. And this always is fun for the kids to be able to go with me, we usually do it either the last day of school, or the first couple of days into the summertime. For us. We went out to breakfast this last time. And then we went to Target and we picked up a few items for summer fun. So this honestly is going to depend on where you live, and what things you're into. And maybe you know if you have a pool or what your household is like, but for us, we picked up some rafts and some floaties and things like that. Water balloons, any kind of thing like that, that we can go out and enjoy in the summertime. But get creative with it. You can do tchotchkes you can do sidewalk paints, all of those things, depending on your child's age, you may also want to look at the beach toys, even if you don't live near a beach. If you live near a lake or a stream, or have sandy areas in your yard or even some mud in your yard, these beach toys are great for that as well. So it doesn't have to be specifically for the beach. The other thing that was a huge success for us back in the summer of 2020 was the slide the slide that you could put in or right next to your pool. But I'm thinking even if you got a slide like that, and you had a big pool, like one of those toddler pools, you could use that as well. And there would be a lot of fun. I mean, you probably wouldn't get a ton of use out of it. But if you got a summers worth out of it, that would be a fun thing for your children to be able to have. Another one is if you have a tent, and you live in a cooler area, then I would recommend the backyard camping. So this was something I mean, I definitely remember doing this as a child. I did it with a dear friend of mine and her sister and some friends. And we would go out in the tent at night. And we would play in it. I don't think any of us were daring enough to sleep in it, if I remember correctly. But it was definitely one of those things where we played in that all night we had, you know, flashlights, and we went in there and listen to music and things like that. But even if you have younger children, my children did this. We have just a small space in our backyard that we put this up. And then they ate dinner in there and they they actually slept in there. I remember my daughter was I don't know she was probably six months old. And we were out there. And by about midnight I was like I'm going back in. So hurry and I came back into the house but the three boys slept outside in the tent all night long. Now mind you down here in southwest Florida. It's a little hot in the summer time for a tent. So maybe not something that we would do so much, but definitely something for those of you who live a little bit further north. This is a great neat thing to be able to do as a family. And it's always a lot of fun. And even if you don't spend the night out there, just having it up for a couple of days, like over the weekend or something, that's a lot of fun for the kids to be able to play in and out. And they tend to really get a kick out of it. Think about also different things that you can do, where you're making the mundane, more fun. So things that, you know, you're always doing. And I'm going to mention a few ideas in regard to foods. So you know, right now, you might not want to be eating out a lot. That is one thing I think of like in the summertime, mom doesn't want to cook so much. So think about eating in instead. My husband and I have recently started doing this, but I think it would be fun for your kids to get involved with it as well. And what we've done because my children like doing Friday night pizza night, but I don't like eating pizza every Friday night. So what we decided to do was, instead we went to Trader Joe's and we picked up freezer meals, and they weren't even specific meals, they were different things like say spanakopita, and, you know, their orange chicken and different things like that, that we enjoyed it was like we were eating out. Yes, I had to cook a little bit, not really cooked, but heat things up. But it provided something a little bit different for us it was eating out, so to speak, eating food that you would normally eat while you're eating out without the expense of eating out. But you could even make a day of this not a day, but a couple of hours of this where you take your kids to Trader Joe's, if you have younger children, I mean, they definitely have a great way of allowing your little ones to have fun. You know, sometimes they have snacks out for you to try. They also had the little grocery carts for the little ones, things like that. But you know, they can help pick out different things for a special Friday night meal. The other thing that's a lot of fun is if you've ever seen those boards like a shark coterie board, but then they also have different fun ones that you can make based on specific themes that you could create. So maybe a Greek one or a Mexican one or things like that, where you're having different foods that you know, are bite size that you can eat finger foods. So that's also an option as well. You could also do a fancy dinner night. And it doesn't mean you have to make a fancy meal. But maybe it's a night where you just create something a little bit different, you put it on nice dinnerware. And, you know, the kids can get dressed up. And then you have candlelight dinner, things like that, where it's not something that's normal, it's something a little bit different, and might make it fun for them. Another one that we do is the kids make dinner night and they get to pick out what they want. So they grab a cookbook, they pick out exactly what they want to make, obviously, you have to look depending on their age to see like, you know, is this something that they're going to be able to do, if you have younger ones, you'll probably want to help a little bit in the kitchen with them. But this is one that we love. And there's actually a board game out there now. And it's I can't even remember the name of it. But it's you know, the it's similar to whatever that TV show is. And they make the dinner and they have the directions and everything of how to make it the ingredients. They have some fun things that they do like these little tests for them, which sometimes we do and sometimes we don't, but it's just fun. The kids make dinner they have fun because they're competing with one another while they're doing it and I will tell you we have had one night it was like burgers and with a special sauce on it and french fries. That was really good. And then this last time, there was a Greek meal that they made with this spanakopita and something else I can't even remember but both meals that we have made from that game have been delicious so far. So you don't even have to get that game. But just having them make dinner and coming up with the Then you, and then having them make it, that might be a fun thing for them as well. And then also doing a bake off. And this is one like from the Great British Bake Off, where we give them the idea of making cookies. And for my family, the three kids go into the kitchen, and they make the cookies. Now, I do want to warn you, this is a mess. So be prepared, that you will be cleaning up constantly, it will be an all day cleanup thing. But if you have older children, obviously they can get involved in the cleanup as well. But that's a fun one. And what we usually do is we have, you know, one person goes into the kitchen and they make their cookies, and then we clean up and then the second person goes into the kitchen and makes theirs, they clean up. And then we have them as dessert that evening. And we judge them and sometimes the grandparents come down and get involved as well. But that is usually a day's worth of fun. Another one that my children really enjoyed when they were younger, was like a picnic Movie Night. So we would lay down a blanket on the floor. And we would say that we're having a picnic while we watched a movie. And that was so much fun for them, we would make homemade pizzas. And we'd watch a movie together have a bowl of popcorn. Before we knew that we all had a corn allergy. But you know something fun like that for them reading so we still want our children reading over the summer, at least I do because I enjoy reading. But some things that you can do for them is have them read outside on a hammock, a swing, or under the tree on a blanket. You could also do a poetry tea, which I think this is a great idea. I love it. And we tried it one year did not go over quite as well as I had hoped. But you might have some children who enjoy this. So I think I started mine a little bit late. But this is where you grab. What we did is I have a few poetry books. So I grabbed a few of those. And then they kind of read through and they found a poem that they wanted to read to us. And then we made tea. And we had, you know, like scones or something. And we sat down and had tea and then each person read their poem. So that's a cute idea. And if that's something they enjoy, you could do that each week. And I'm thinking even making a son book club, like a family book club, where you all read a book and talk about it. I don't know that might be fun, as well. Another thing that my children did when they were little was this airplane travel. So we honestly did not I did not get involved in this. This was something they did. We had the dining room chairs, they took the dining room chairs and they set them up like you know playing style two and two on either side with a little row in the middle. And then those little carts that you get they have a met target now. I think we got ours from Michaels. And it's like a little tray that it's a tray cart that has like three shelves and you can pull whatever, I have books and stuff that I have in mind. But they use that and they would take it up and down the aisles of the airplane, one of them was the captain, and then they pretended to go somewhere. So this you could even incorporate it on a hole where maybe you visit a country and you all could make something or read something or you know, even watch a little movie about this country. There's some really great ones if you have I think it's Disney plus that we have found them before where you can maybe go experience the animals in that country and the landscape and things like that thinking similar to like those Epcot experiences. So maybe you could do something like that and and have some food from that country or a couple of activities or something like that as well to make a day of it. Another one that's fun, is pillow forts. So if you have a dining room table, you grab a whole bunch of pillows and a whole bunch of blankets, and you just tell them to create a fort and my kids have gone in there and read in there and you know this was when they were younger, obviously. And they would just hang out in there and play for hours when they were little, I mean, I remember even just my daughter doing where she would put blankets over like the couch, to the coffee table. And she'd have like this little space, and she'd bring all her stuffed animals in there. And she would play for a couple of hours on her own in there. So that might be something fun to where you really don't have to get involved. Because I know a lot of the ones I'm talking about, maybe the parents have to be involved, but you can send them off on their way as well on their own. Another one I thought of is having a family slumber party, maybe you do this one evening, on the weekend, where you set up a place for you all to sleep in the living room and have a pillow fight. And just imagine, you know, think about things that you did in slumber parties. And you all do it as a fun thing together as a family. Because this is the sodic and you know, your younger kids are gonna think that's a blast. So. So moving on into things that you can do out and about in your community. There are just imagine that you're a tourist in your own community, you could go to parks, you can go on trails, you can even do some scavenger hunts or geocaching in your area, look for passes that they may have for tourists that are coming to visit. And many times they'll do these passes where you can try four or five different places, thinking like if you have zoos, or botanical gardens and things like that, you can buy a pass and be able to go to these places for a little bit less. I know for our family, when we go to different areas, on vacation, we will usually go walk around their downtown area and then maybe grab a bite to eat. So that's another thing that you might want to do is just go down to a downtown area, even some downtown areas that you know, maybe not your community specifically, but maybe 30 minutes away, maybe there's another downtown area that you could check out and just check out their shops and then have lunch there, that might be something fun and different. And for us, we like to go into the quirky little shops and think like the general stores. This is more specifically for us. When we go to North Carolina, there's lots of general stores, there's thrift stores. And there's a lot of neat little things that you can find in those places. And we usually play around, you know, they find little things and it's usually a fun time. But this might be something that you could do as well. Another thought that I have is if it's a rainy day, head to the bookstore, grab some hot chocolate or you know a cookie or just water, I mean, you don't have to always have something sweet or snacky. But you know, have fun with it. Just go look around the bookstore. Enjoy your time there. Another one that would be fun is going to some of the local pet stores, especially the ones that have more animals. And just kind of looking around, look at all the fish try to you know, don't just go to the cat and dog area. Look at all the areas, look at all the animals, all the lizards and the snakes and just experience all of that, taking your time with them to go through that. And especially for the younger ones, this is something that they love to do. Even if you have a local farm, ours, we have a local farm that my mom used to take them to all the time. And they would have like goats and cows and they would bring carrots in their pockets and feed the goats and the cows and that was just something that they had fun doing as well. So just kind of think outside the box with that or just think about things that you know you remember doing as a child that were fun. Another thing that I think might be fun is just going to the garden center grabbing up sunflowers. They have big planters we have one it's like the half as a wine barrel planter. Bring that home and fill it up with no you're going to need probably like rocks and things in the bottom. But you can put soil in there and then just Put different flowers in there. That's a whole day's experience. And then if you have like garden beds or even the uplifted gardens, you could do something like that as well where you're actually getting your hands dirty in the garden. And even growing your own food would be a lot of fun as well. Thinking about you and your childhood, think about things that you did. So old fashioned driving movie theaters, if you can find one near you in your area, we have a couple there about an hour and a half away. But that might be a fun experience. One other thing that I think about as a child was the ice cream truck. And I feel in this might not be in your area. But we don't really have ice cream trucks because we have a lot of gated communities now. But even just going and having that type of experience where you go to the store, and I swear I feel like everything I'm talking about is sweet swan. But I guess that's what I think of when I think about summer is like ice cream and s'mores. And I don't know, that's interesting, sorry. But maybe grabbing like an ice cream sandwich, taking it out and having them eat ice cream sandwich outside and go for a walk with ice cream sandwich or something like that to kind of change up the experience with them. Another thing that we like to do, and it's going to depend like if you have bikes and you have a truck, you might be able to take the bike somewhere. But bike rides are great. But sometimes it's more fun to get out of your area and go to another area where you can ride bikes. So we have like a beach near us. It's a it's an island. And we take our bikes there and we can ride up and down the island out there at Sanibel Island. And that is something that we enjoy doing as a family for fun. So maybe finding an area that you could take your bikes to, rather than just riding your bikes in your community or wherever you might live, you could go somewhere different with your bikes. Or you might be able to go to an area that rents bikes, if that's something that you'd be interested in as well. And then one thing that we did as a family that my kids still talk about, that they enjoy doing, and honestly, I don't know if we went back there, if it would be the same experience, but I'm gonna give it to you because maybe you haven't done this yet as a family. So it might be something fun. But we have an Ikea on the east coast. It's about a hour, hour and a half away from us. We drove over there one day Now mind you, I was looking for something specific. So I had a reason to go. But you might want to just go check it out. And I would say it might you might want to my children were younger when we did this, not terribly young. But you know, I would say the youngest was probably five. So 579, that kind of age range. We went to IKEA. We the kids played, you know they have different areas like that are set up like kitchens and things they were playing in there, they have an area that kind of is like, I don't know, it almost feels like bunk beds and a loft style house. So they were playing with all of that stuff. They were looking at everything because they have it very visual when you go in the IKEA how they segment everything off. Then we had lunch in their cafeteria. And it was one of those things that you I would have never thought this would be a memory of theirs. But my middle son has said since then, you know we really should go back to that place and he describes it he's like that was so much fun. So you just never know what you may find by going to like these big stores and just having them kind of play. I mean obviously don't make them don't allow them to be unruly or anything but let them have a little bit of fun. They were sitting on all the couches, trying out all the chairs that type of stuff in the IKEA so that is pretty much all I have for you. I do have in here that you may want to look into like your local ice cream shops or chocolate shops. They may do some fun activities where you can bring your children in To watch how things are done, and even if they won't do it for like a family, maybe you could get a group of children together to go together. Another thing that we did, it was actually I did it for college. But and I don't know what the rules are in regards to this, but going to your local recycle center, or water treatment facility, those were fascinating. They are not something that I would have ever thought was interesting. But it was so interesting to learn about. So I don't know if your area is open to that type of educational things. But you might look into it, it's definitely something that, you know, it's an opportunity for the kids to be able to learn about how things are handled on the back end. So those are hopefully some ideas, I'd love for you to come over to our form fitmom community, and share any ideas that you have. The goal is to help provide you with ideas that you can use in your own community. And hopefully, I've kind of sparked some sense for you to get creative and think about your own childhood, and things that you did as a child. Oh, and I do want to say I mean, definitely I'm thinking here, and I'm realizing there's a couple more things like when it rains, letting your kids obviously if you live in an area that is thunder and lightning, you need to pay attention to that. But on the rainy days where there's no thundering lightning, take letting your kids go out in little galoshes and an umbrella and letting them play in the puddles and splash around. Even like looking for I remember as a child that we would find tadpoles and I'm not sure if you really even see that anymore, but like tadpoles in the area behind our house that would get filled up with water. But you know, allow them to get out there and look around and play. So those once again, those are my thoughts for you and hopefully came gave you some ideas and let us know in our phone fit mom community, what you are doing with your family this summer so we can share ideas and continue the conversation. hopefully be able to have a full, fun and nostalgic summer