Summer Fun for Little Ones

With the thermometer pushing 100 degrees here in East Texas, it seems the little ones are gravitating back indoors to the air-conditioning. Longer daylight hours are keeping little ones awake and ready for action until well after dinner time.
What’s a parent or grandparent to do?
If summer at your house brings with it the laughter and energy of little ones, here’s a handy list to keep taped inside your pantry door for summertime boredom emergencies.
-Pick blueberries at one of the near-by farms. Buy extra, so your little ones can share them with your neighbors. Ringing the neighbors’ doorbells with a surprise is the perfect way to entertain children and bless the neighbors at the same time!
-Pull that old typewriter off the top shelf of the closet and explain that before computers, people actually used these antique machines. Then set the kiddoes to work with lots of typing paper.
-Make cardboard box cottages out of big corrugated boxes. Add spool door knobs, paper rolls for gutters, and construction paper or magazine pages for tile roofs. Make a garage, a barn for the stuffed animals, and a store next door until you have a whole village. -“Paint” your house with a paint brush and a bucket of water.
-Tell stories into a tape recorder, so they can play them again and again. Tell family stories about when their parents were little or make up fictional stories with important truths included.
-Plan an indoor picnic in a neighbor’s garden room or a breakfast picnic outside in the cool of the day. Let the children help you grocery shop and prepare simple child-friendly food. Buy store bought cookies and let them decorate with store bought icing and sprinkles.
-Visit a nursing home. Take some of your fresh blueberries, your decorator cookies, or plan ahead with a song that your little ones enjoy singing.
-Play “Full-Contact Spoons.” This is a version of the old card game, Spoons, with the added benefit of being a perfect excuse to tickle, hug, wrestle, and giggle a bunch. Also, try “Full-Body Ping Pong” which requires no table or paddles, just ping pong balls and a lot of energy.
-Take them to a dollar store with a dollar in hand. Let them buy whatever catches their fancy; you may find you are as entertained as they are. This will only work when they are very small because children soon discover that they would rather have more money, but isn’t it fun while it lasts?
-Be a swinger. Don’t let the lack of a tree branch keep you from enjoying those plastic swings for little ones. Put large eye hooks in every doorway, in the garage, or on the porch, so that little ones can swing wherever you are. Buy a swing for each child and hang as many eye hooks as it takes to keep everyone moving.
With little ones, summer is absolutely the best thing ever invented because it allows you a few unscheduled minutes to enjoy them, that is, IF you can keep them busy and happy. A few minutes of planning ahead can make those unstructured treasures of time perfectly delightful.

Cathy Primer Krafve, aka Checklist Charlie, lives in East Texas with her children who are growing up too fast and the future grandfather of her future grandchildren.