
Feature General
Summer Fun
By Amy Heesacker
May/June 2006
If your family is anything like
mine, the first warm days of spring saw you searching for last
year's bucket of sidewalk chalk and dusting off the tricycles and
"big kid" bikes. My children were begging to play in the sprinkler
when the hose water still contained ice crystals! Now that the
days are growing longer and the driveways hotter, you could probably
use some new ideas for making the most of your outside time. What
follows are some fun and easy (and inexpensive) summer activities
to entertain your kids (or a whole playgroup) right in your own
backyard!
The Obstacle Course
Using whatever you have stored in your garage or shed (e.g., hoses
for weaving around; hula hoops/inner tubes for jumping into;
balls, buckets, and tennis rackets for making baskets; plastic
pools/cardboard boxes for crawling under/through; broom handles
for balancing on, etc.) design a course in the grass for the
kids to run through again and again. Try filling the plastic
pool with water for a splashing finish!
A variation on this theme is to create a driveway bike/tricycle
course using sidewalk chalk and objects (e.g., buckets, rocks,
paint cans) to serve as safety cones that the riders can maneuver
around. A cool variation includes a sprinkler to bike through as
they pass over the finish line.
The Scavenger Hunt
Create a list of things that can be easily collected around the
outside of your house (e.g., a blade of grass, a leaf, a rock,
a pine cone, a pine needle, a flower, a scoop of dirt or sand,
a piece of bark, berries, dead bugs if that's the kind of kid
you have, etc.) then grab a grocery sack and head out on a hunting
expedition. When you get home with the "loot" create a summer
memory box by gluing it all to the outside of a shoebox.
A variation on this theme is to create a list of non-collectible
summer sights to search for outside (e.g. a flying bird, a butterfly
on a flower, a cloud shaped like a buffalo, a friendly neighbor,
a mail truck, a fire hydrant, a manhole cover, a squirrel, etc).
Then find a tree to sit under and make up a story together that
contains all of the items you found (e.g., "Once upon a time there
was a beautiful orange butterfly named Bernice...")
The Athens KidsFest Water Game
Last summer my kids couldn't get enough of this game at KidsFest so we came home and created our own. Fill several plastic bottles
(20 oz or 2 liter) with water for stability then place ping pong
balls or other lightweight plastic balls on the open bottle tops.
Fill a clean spray bottle with water and squirt to knock the
balls off the bottles. Surprisingly fun!
Another use for spray bottles: fill a bottle with water and tempura
paint. Soak an old sheet, pillowcase or t-shirt with water and
then use the "spray paint" to make a work of art. To start over
simply hose off the "canvas" and start again. For art to keep,
buy a stretched canvas when they go on sale at the local hobby
shop and use a little less water in the paint mixture.
The Relay Race
Fill a bucket with water and food coloring. Give the kids a variety
of "tools" (e.g., measuring cups, large plastic serving spoons,
plastic teacups, etc.) to get the water from the bucket to a
gallon size water jug on the other side of the yard (a funnel
on the top of the jug makes this easier). For older kids you
can combine this with the obstacle course for a real challenge!
Savvy (and tired) parents try a "clean up" variation at the end
of a long summer day in which kids race to see how many objects
they can get back in the garage before the time is up!
Amy Heesacker holds a doctoral degree in Counseling and Developmental
Psychology. She is a part time assistant professor at the University
of Georgia and lives in Athens with her husband and their children,
Javi (4) and Isa (1).
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