Wednesday, July 2, 2014

One Month Down

We have officially made it to the second month of summer! I don't have much to share about our fourth week in the season of heat. Here are a few activities we've implemented in these first 4 weeks in the season of heat:

1. Educational youtube videos

I mentioned we are working on all the 50 states capitols. Z and I just about have them mastered. For that we use the clip from Animaniacs called "Wakko's 50 State Capitols" and we are also trying to learn some spanish along the way this summer and one of the videos that all three kids seem to benefit from is De Todos Colores. It's about 12 minutes of pictures with the spanish word spoken out loud and it's all on youtube.

2. Coloring



I know this is such a simple and obvious boredom buster, but there is something to be said of this simple activity.



My mom gives us these rolls of paper that they throw away at Delta and the backs of them are blank so they just doodle all the live long day on that stuff.



Well, not all day. That would be nice if they did, but it's fun while it lasts. What would have been trash has brought hours of entertainment at our home.




3. Toy Rotation



When I was pregnant with my first we felt like we were grown ups and we needed life insurance. The guy that handled our case offered advice that meant nothing to me at the time, but now I see it as mommy magic. It's toy rotation. When they see all their toys all the time it's like they don't see them at all, but if you take them away and pull them out periodically and then suddenly it's like they are discovered in a new light.



Before summer began I went through the big bin of toys in our home and I threw some stuff away and sorted out what was left. That means cars go with cars, super heroes are in another category, and all the potato head pieces are together at last. Toys are kind of like food. Who wants to eat a bunch of left over muffins, eggs, pizza, salad, and ice-cream all mixed up and put on a plate like a casserole? But separate it and put them in their prospective meals and that's appealing. It has been nice to pull out a set of dominos or trains to keep them busy for a while whereas before they were just sitting in the bottom of a big plastic tub. For the record the room has since become mostly a hodge podge of toys that probably hold support groups at night to deal with their rejection, but I plan to get back to a rotation again it really did help when I needed a moment of peace.

4. Visiting far away friends
The summer is a great time to see those friends that don't live nearby. We drove about an hour away last week to visit some of our favorite playmates and sadly I took no photos.

5. Bubbles
The joy of bubbles need no explanation, but sometimes you don't have any bubbles. Or what about when you spilled your jar or lost your wand? Well, my friends, the fun does not have to stop.



I pinned this idea a long time ago and it came in handy last week. All you need is some straws, dish soap, water, and tape.



They had a ton of fun with this one.

6. Celebrating Birthdays

Last week we celebrated my birthday and the Z and SJ made this lovely cake (with assistance).


We were also invited to one of SJ's classmates birthday parties. You can imagine their excitement at this place.


We have another party next week. Hooray for summer birthdays! 


2 comments:

Sarah said...

Hearing you've made it a month gives me hope that I can survive summer too. Haha. I really like that video of Spanish colors. I'm showing it to Celia later. We're working on more Spanish vocab because she's going into a Spanish immersion program for kindergarten.

{amy} said...

Y'all are having such a fun summer!! I think it's great that you've found so many awesome ways to spend your time!