Fun things to do with children in the summer?

[PrincessFiona]

I'm trying to come up with some fun summer ideas....what do you guys do with your little ones in the summer?

We're going to go to some of the diff. area swimming pools.....and we may take a one week vacation up north to a hotel that has a huge swimming play area inside complete with water slides, tube rides, etc.


But what about the everyday fun stuff?

[DCJenn]

We went to the pool- everyday. My mom went with us when we were little but once we were old enough, we went to swim team in the morning, came home for breakfast and then went back tothe pool until dinner.

I can't imagine doing anything else! What else is there to do?

Jenn

[mommax3]

Luke has been in an enrichment class M-Th from 9 to 2 the past two weeks, but that ended today. I wish he could be in something like that throughout the summer! It was a really neat class about the human body.....lots of science.....and they each made a powerpoint presentation about what they had learned and presented it to their parents today. It was a cooperative program between the school the boys attend and the University here.....the kids were taught by Education students who were in turn supervised by classroom teachers and their professor. Luke just loved it! VBS was this week for Joel. Our church has a day camp for older kids (3 - 6 grades) the last week of June that Luke will go to. Otherwise, they are enrolled in a program called "Super Summer" that is through the preschool where Nathan goes.....it meets in a different building than the preschool, and it is on T-TH from 9 to 2. Each week has a theme (magic, the circus, dinosaurs, etc.) and the activities are arranged around that. They go swimming as a group in the afternoon (at the same pool we belong to). Nathan goes to preschool, just like during the year, same days and times.

I am trying to do school stuff with Joel a little each day while Luke has reading time and Nathan builds with blocks. The older two each get a half hour of gamecube time and a half hour of computer time. We don't watch tv during the day, unless it is something Nathan is watching on PBS or Noggin, but I will probably let them watch one video per day. I am having the boys do more chores, and I am hoping to teach Luke to do some simple cooking this summer as well. I still go to the gym 4 days a week, and the boys go to the childcare room, and I am thinking that 2 days a week, we will go straight to the pool from the gym.....it will eat up some time.

I know I will be feeling desperate in about two weeks from now! It is rapidly getting too hot to even consider sending them outside to play during the day. None of the "outside" stuff that the kids are doing is cheap (with the exception of VBS) but, as I told my husband, neither is therapy!

Let me know if you come up with any great ideas, Kris!

Sally

A few things I am planning on doing aside from the waterpark/six flags routine is taking the girls to pick strawberries at a local farm. I also love taking them to different farmers markets on Saturdays. We have a place called North Market in Columbus where they have a standard indoor market where you can get everything from flowers, wine, fresh fish, breads and produce. On Saturdays they have different vendors outside selling produce and fresh herbs. They have Steve the balloon guy who makes the coolest balloon animals and they also have face painting and childrens music. There are summer concert series in the park . Mackenzie is going to a mini cheerleading camp for 3 days and both of them are going to a kids Fit-n-fun Camp for a week 9am-1pm sposored by our local hospital.

Of course I am taking plenty of pictures so I can have an excuse to buy more scrapbooking stuff. Someone please stop me.

[Phoebe]

We don't have many plans because most activities require the child be 3 years old. We miss it be 3 months. She also got kicked out of her gymnastics program. One thing I enjoyed as a child and I signed my daughter up for was the reading program at the local library. It can be nice relief of the summer heat.

Jennifer

When I was little, the pool, summer reading programs, and art classes were my favorite things. Also my mom used to take us to the nearby lake to have picnics and feed the ducks. I loved that.