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Our Favorite Boards for Summer Fun on Pinterest

Erin Wing’s I LOVE SUMMER

Melissa Taylor’s SUMMER IDEAS FOR KIDS

Imagination Tree’s OUTDOOR PLAY AND LEARNING

Colorado Mom’s SUMMER CRAFTS

True Aim Education’s OUTDOOR GAMES FOR KIDS

This Happy Mom’s SUMMER ACTIVITIES

ScribbleTime’s SUMMERTIME

Holly Homer’s FAMILY FUN

Our Favorite Summer Activities on Pinterest

100 Free or Low Cost Things to Do with Kids Over the Summer

Melted Bead Suncatcher

Kool-Aid Play Dough

Summer Calendar

Summer Passports

Summer Learning eBook from We Teach 

Bordom Busting Ideas

What are your summer favorites?

This is my last post for Imagine Toys. I’m grateful for the opportunity to have worked for such a fantastic company that values children and play so highly. Thank you, Imagine Toys!

Have a great summer, everyone!

~ Melissa Taylor

Summer vacation means lazy days, summer camp, splashing in the pool, and . . . reading?

If you’re worried about getting your kids to read over the summer, you’re not alone. I find it essential to have some structures in place that will keep the kids reading. Here are my six summer structures:

Summer Reading Structures

1. Books Easily Available

Make a dedicated space where books are easily accessible to your kids — not tucked away. The easier they are to see, the more likely that they’ll be used.

2. Special Reading Areas

Squishy pillows, comfy furniture and soft lighting can make an enticing reading location. Make a special place or places for your kids to enjoy a good book.

3. Book Rotation

Visit the library regularly to get new books. Let your kids fill up a library bag with all the books they want to read for the week. If they get to choose, they’re more likely to read.

4. Summer Book Club

Start a summer book club with friends. It’s motivating to see friends so make it a requirement to have read the book to be able to attend the book club party.

5. Allow Technology

Let your kids read on the Kindle and iPad as well as listen to audio books on their iPods. Keep them loving stories no matter what.

6. Book Rewards

Set reading goals. When accomplished, reward with money at the bookstore or books online.

If you are looking for book recommendations, visit my blog, Imagination Soup, Jen Robinson’s Book Page, and Scholastic.

If your kids like treasure hunts, they’ll love geocaching.

Geocaching is an outdoor, world-wide treasure hunt which requires the use of a GPS to find the treasure.

The treasures aren’t really anything big – nothing of value but a little memento or trinket – stored in a weather-proof metal box.

The treasure is in the hunt – that’s the fun!

Get Started Geocaching

Get started with a geocaching kit like this one that we sell at Imagine Toys.

The kit includes a GPS unit, a geocache container, a guidebook, and treasures. The GPS is already loaded with 250,000 geocache sites in the United States and you’ll get plenty of hints if you need.

Alternatively, you can use a geocaching app for your phone – the iPhone or Android.

Find a Hunt

Now that you have your GPS, you’re ready to go on a geocache adventure. Find a hunt online at Geocaching.com at the “Hide and Seek” page (or on your GPS or mobile app). You’ll be given the coordinates of the cache.

Next find the starting point and get started looking.

Find the Cache

When you find the treasure, sign your name in the logbook. If you take the treasure, you must leave one to replace it.

Have Fun

Geocaching gives you a fun family activity that keeps you outside, active, and learning. Let us know how it goes. Happy geocaching!!

Photo credit: Padraic Ryan / Foter.com / CC BY-SA

My daughter, like many kids, experiences stress physically with stomach aches and headaches.

In fact, headaches, stomach aches, vomiting and bed-wetting are all common manifestations of stress. Daniel Goleman’s book Emotional Intelligence revealed to the world that Emotional Intelligence (EQ) strongly predicts future success in life so it’s quite important we help our children manage their stress and worry. Plus, it’s just better for their health to not worry or fret, right?

How do I help her? Here’s what’s working for us.

PHYSICAL ACTIVITY

Make sure your children get daily physical activity. This is good for children with ADHD, too. Actually all children.

If it’s outside activity, even better! Both Vitamin D and outdoor green are mood-boosters. Spend time outside running, swinging, jumping and playing.

BREATHING AND VISUALIZATION

We try different visualization techniques at bedtime. One such choice is Stress Free Kids, a line of books, CDs and curriculum with characters and stories. A Boy and a Bear, The Affirmation Web,  A Boy and a Turtle and The Goodnight Caterpillar are some of their options.

The book, Imaginations: Fun Relaxation Stories and Mediations for Kids by Carolyn Clark, has great visualization scripts that we read at bedtime. Our current favorite is about blowing up a balloon.

BOOKS

For books about emotions, I love the “When I Feel” books by Cornelia Maude Spelman. She also has other titles which include:

When I Feel Scared
When I Feel Jealous
When I Feel Good About Myself
When I Feel Angry
When I Feel Sad
When I Care About Others

What to Do when you Worry Too Much by Dawn Huebner is a good book. We’re halfway through reading it together. It talks about making a rule that you can only worry for 1 hour a day, and putting worries on a worry shelf.

How Else Do You Help Your Child?

Photo credit: Ignas Kukenys from Vilnius, Lithuania / Foter.com / CC BY

Kids, even as young as two-years old, can add math to meal time. Learning is always more enjoyable when it’s fun. So combine food and math and you’ll be reinforcing math concepts.

1. Counting

Practice counting everything you eat– bites, pieces, chews.

2. Addition

At a restaurant, add up the prices of what your family orders. How much will the meal cost?

3. Division

Since kids always want everything to be fair, work on division with creating “fair shares” of food like cookies or pizza. What is a fair share? How do you know?

4. Multiplication

Learn how to tip 20% but multiplying your restaurant bill by .1 and doubling it.

5. Estimation

Ask your kids to estimate quantity. So, how many 1/4 cups of cereal to you estimate will it take to fill up your cereal bowl?

6. Measurement

Of course, cooking gives children lots of math practice in measurement. Here are some fun cookbooks for kids.

Betty Crocker Kids Cook

William-Sonoma Kids in the Kitchen: Fun Food

Eat Your Math Homework: Recipes for Hungry Minds

Yummy Muffin Recipe

Guilt Free Chocolate Muffins
adapted from Health, March 2008 – one of our favorite recipes!

1 c applesauce
1 tsp canola oil
1/2 sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extract
3/4 c. oat flour
1/3 c unsweetened cocoa
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c chocolate chip cookies

Mix wet ingredients and dry separately, stir together. Bake for 30 minutes at 350.

Now it’s time for you to eat your math . . .

Photo credit: Darwin Bell / Foter.com / CC BY-NC

It’s almost summer so it’s time to get ready for fun, play, and learning! What plans do you already have? What are you still needing to plan? Here’s our list from A to Z to help you make it the best summer ever.

A

audio books
art

B

books and book clubs
bubbles
beach
board games

C

camps and DIY camps
camping
crafts

D

draw with chalk
drive-in theaters

E

electronics – set a daily limit
edible necklaces

F

fireworks
forts
frisbee
farmer’s market

G

gardening
games outside

H

hunt for treasure
hopscotch

I

inventions
ice cream
imagine

J

jigsaw puzzles

K

kits
kick balls
kites

L

library reading programs

M

movement
movie night
museums

N

night walk with flashlights

O

Olympics in your backyard
obstacle course

P

pinwheels
pinata
photo booth
picnic
play dough

Q

quiet time

R

relay races
ride bikes
rocks

S

smoothies
swimming
slumber party

T

travel
toy-a-day
treasure hunts

W

water balloons
water blob

Z

zoo

It’s going to be a great summer, isn’t it?

In fact, an old keyboard was one of my kids’ favorite “toys” for pretending.

If your kids want to play office, it’s really easy to set up.

Props for Office Play

notepad
pencils
sticky notes
keyboard
pretend computer (make your own)
calculator
paper clips
file folders
phone
calendar
briefcase
other random supplies: labels, stickers, stamper

Ideas for Office Play

One thing I’ve learned from my preschool teacher friends is that kids can sustain pretend play longer when they have play roles and pretend scenarios.

Roles: worker, customer, boss, assistant, accountant, organizer

Scenarios:

- talking on phone to customer

- writing a letter or email

- file papers

- make business cards

- invent a business

Gather what you have around the house, and let your kids enjoy this pretend play fun idea!

The best thing you can do for Earth Day with your kids is experience nature.

It’s highly unlikely that a globe craft will teach a love of the environment.

But, going outside sure will.

Even at night, there is so much to see.

So, go outside.

When children love and appreciate nature, it only follows that they’ll want to protect it with environmental-saving habits such as recycling. But, they must experience nature to do this.

Go outside!

You won’t believe what my daughter is feeding in the photograph above. . . It’s not the ducks. It’s the fish!!

Animals in Nature

My kids think animals in nature are the coolest — how about yours?

You don’t have to do anything fancy, when you go outside, find animals.

Do you have a lake where you can feed ducks?

Or a nearby zoo?

How about a backyard bird feeder?

Do you look for tracks in the snow or mud?

Find the animals in your environment.

Plants in Nature

Another great way for children to learn to appreciate nature is growing things.

Watch for spring plants. Notice the green buds and early bulbs.

Clear an area for a family garden. Talk about the food you like to eat that comes from plants.

Plant spring flowers in pots.

Go on a scavenger hunt for animals and nature. Printable cards on Craft Interrupted.

Outside Toys

My kids love their outside toys. It keeps them outside having fun. Here are some favorite toys for outside:

Lawnmower

Geocache

Zipline

Scooter

Do your kids play outside? What do they like to play with?

A trip to a museum with kids can be a fun, educational outing — or a total melt-down disaster. To avoid the bad, consider these helpful tips that just require a little planning ahead.

Before you Go

1. Pack
water, snacks, lunch, wet wipes, bags, cameras, disposable cameras for kids , plastic bags, diapers, change of clothes, sunscreen, sketch book and colored pencils

2. Wear
tennis shoes with socks

3. Make a Plan
download the museum map before you go. Ask your kids to pick 1 thing they want to see for sure. Plan out your adventure.

When You’re There

4. See if there are kid guides or activities. Many museums have eye-spy games or backpacks of activities for children.

5. Take lots of rests for snacks and water.

6. Let each child be the leader for their pick.

7. Encourage them to see one new thing that you pick.

8. Pack a lunch to eat outside if it’s nice.

9. Don’t stay all day. Stay about half the time you would want to stay as an adult. Go before the melt-down. You want to leave on a happy note.

If you can, go to the museum frequently in small doses, it’s so much more fun than one long, tiring trip!

Do you live where there are good museums for kids? Where are your favorites?

So it’s April and my thermometer currently tells me it’s below 40 degrees.  This means playing outside is still at a minimum and requires a lot of warm layers.

Needless to say, we are still inside a lot even though we don’t want to be.  So what do we do when we want to be outside exploring and running but are instead confined to the tiny space of our living room?  We build stuff.

As a family of two parents, a three-and-a-half-year-old, and a 12-month old, we have somewhere around a gazillion toys just for building stuff.  In fact, even toys that are not in any way or form meant for building get used for building stuff.

You need a road for your cars? Line up books. Or pile them up and watch your baby brother Godzilla them down.

Need a place to hide for a minute? Create a fort with every single blanket and pillow in a 2-mile radius of the living room.

What’s that? Intruders (aka your baby brother) might break in while you are taking your bath? Build a Booby Trap with ALL THE THINGS in the hallway. That’ll teach ‘em!

Of course we do spend time with actual building toys too.  The youngest works on his fine and gross motor skills by stacking, putting things in other things, and smacking towers down.

Blocks are your classic “stack and smack” toy and we have quite a few varieties of them.  We have the classic wooden blocks (seen below), we have plastic blocks, and we have Drip Drop Blocks (seen above).

We have SmartMax toys and we have, of course Legos.  My boys are too little yet for regular Legos (although I think for the eldest’s 4^th birthday, he may just ask for them), but we have a million of the Duplo kind.  The way it goes around here is that my 3yo builds a magnificent creation and the little one destroys it.  Then there are tears.  It’s fun!

We also have a couple Mic-O-Mic helicopter sets.  My oldest LOVES these because they are JUST for him.  The baby is too small to be around such tiny parts.  And even though the sets are to build helicopters, he gets creative and makes whatever his heart desires.

I am so hoping our days of sitting inside building things are numbered.  I can tell that both of my boys are itching to run and play and build things out of dirt just to destroy them.  Because that is what kids do, right?

_____________________

Katie Sluiter is a freelance writer and teacher who should probably be grading papers or changing diapers but is more likely blogging, tweeting, or just overusing social media in general. She chronicles all this on her blog, Sluiter Nation.