1. a m said

    It’s summer time, and the living should be easy… unless you’re a parent at home with young children and no idea how you’re going to keep them entertained through the hot days of summer. Here are tried-and-true ideas from my home (and yard) to yours.

    1. Water In Small Doses

    Forget the exhausting trip to the local pool, or save that for special days and weekends. Toddlers and preschoolers are fascinated with water, but it doesn’t have to be in pool-sized amounts. Find a few buckets (those 5-gallon plastic ones are great) or big planters and fill them half to three-quarters full of water.

    Then collect some bowls, spoons, paintbrushes, and measuring cups. Add a toddler or preschooler or two. Observe the magic.
    Note: always supervise water play. Drowning is possible in even a very small amount of water. Be there with your children as they play and be attentive.

    2. Building a Collection

    One of the great things about toddlers and preschoolers is that they haven’t yet learned to be skeptical; so when you come up with a great idea for them to collect, say, pine cones or sticks or white rocks, all you have to do is present it with some enthusiasm and they’ll latch on.

    Provide a bucket or basket or backpack to haul their treasures around, and a safe little hidey-spot outside where they can watch their pile grow. If you have a wood-burning fireplace, having them collect pine cones or twigs serves a dual purpose; you get a kindling pile started!

    3. Outdoor Kitchen

    Mudpies are great and should be part of every child’s summer; but you can do a little more with that mud-piemaking creativity. Help your child set up an outdoor kitchen. You can move a plastic play kitchen outside or use a few boxes and dishpans to build your own.

    Help them see natural objects as potential kitche material: a piece of bark is a bowl, a stick is a spoon, an acorn top is a tiny cup. Add water and bubbles, throw in a little mud… Mudpies have never been this fascinating.

    4. Construction Site

    Have you ever noticed how kids grativitate toward the dirtiest spot of the yard? Capitilize on that. Invest in a few play construction trucks, farm tractors, and tools like sand shovels. Add a bag of sand or pea gravel and let them loose.

    5. Painting the World

    Painting is a great indoor activity any time of year; think of how much fun it can be outside, when paper is only the beginning! Invest in a few oversized jars of washable, non-toxic paint. Provide sponges, brushes, mini-rollers; let your toddlers and preschoolers paint the sidewalk, the patio, the tree trunks, the landscaping stones.

    It won’t hurt anything because it’s nontoxic, and it will wash off with next good rain. It’s a great experience for kids to enjoy with very few limits.

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