The winner of the Shelf Reliance Consolidator Pantry is…#15 Gretta.
Gretta said…I would love to win the consolidators! Thanks for the chance.
And the winner of the Thrive Taco TVP is Kimber #277.
Kimber said…The products I’ve tried from Shelf Reliance taste great! I’d love to win something from them :)
Congratulations Ladies! Send me an email and we will get you your new products! Thanks Tiffany from Shelf Reliance for sponsoring such an awesome giveaway! Remember that you can still use the coupon code for Idea Room readers to get you some products from Shelf Reliance for those of you interested in their amazing products!
________________________________________
Summer has officially begun at our house! We are always looking for fun and inexpensive things to do.
We like to sit down and plan out our summer asking each of the kids what they would like to do for fun. Then we tenatively plan things out so that we make sure the summer doesn’t get away from us.
We usually plan a lot of trips to the pool, picnic’s at the park, playing in the creek, water party’s, trips to the lake, arts and crafts and camping trips in the mountains.
But we are always trying to find fun new things to add to our “summer to-do” lists. So I thought it would be fun to have you guys help us make a list of some fun family summer time activities so we can all find ways to entertain our families this summer.
So if you have any ideas, leave a comment or a link and share your ideas with us. Hopefully we can come up with a good list of things to keep the summer boredom at bay.
JOIN OUR NEWSLETTER
Would you like more Recipes, DIY, Printables and Organization Ideas?
Subscribing to the newsletter will enable us to periodically send you creative content exclusively for Idea Room subscribers.
*View our Privacy Policy here.
Clueless_Mama says
I love all those pictures. The one with the baby goat is just too cute. I have the same problem during the summer. I hope you get some great ideas! Wish I had one to leave you???
Last year fund were limited and we didn't get to take a real vacation, so I planned "themed" days for my kids. Our favorite was Beach Day. When the kids woke up, I had the table decorated with buckets and sand toys, little beach balls, and water bottles. We played with Moon Sand, ate crab-shaped calzones for dinner, made beachy mobiles, etc. We ended the day with a visit to my sister's pool.
The beach and the library are a must in this house. I can't wait to see what the others suggest.
I live in Georgia so I don't know that I would be much help but around here there are tons of businesses which sponser free days for kids whether it be restuarants or attractions. Disney World is a must for my family. And your little girl is too cute!
This blog just posted a few things.
http://partiesandholidays.blogspot.com/search/label/Summer%20Activities%20for%20Kids
When I was a kid, I loved going to the library. It would also be fun to do local day hikes or exploring.
One idea I came up with and already implemented was 'panning for gold'. I took a bowl of gravel and spray painted it a glossy gold. Then I found some normals sized rocks and spray painted them too (golden nuggets). I buried them all in the sandbox. It was some good excercise too:) I told the kids there is gold in our sandbox and they tell every friend that comes over too. Already, they have spent hours 'panning for gold'. I love that they can do it all by themselves too:)
Next I'm going to find some chunky sticks and spray them white. This will be some dinosaur-bone-digging fun!
I love this idea of sharing. I'll be checking back to see what everyone says. My best summer tips are community events and freebies. I look through our local newspaper every day to find out what is going on and what my kids might enjoy. This has given us a chance to experience lots of new things we might normally not attend. We also love the 1.00 movies through companies like cinemark. Can't wait to hear what everyone else is doing.
We do an annual pass to the zoo which is lots of fun and after the initial cost is pretty cheap (bring your own lunches, drinks, etc.) I know our county library system is doing a weekly craft day along with their reading program that we'll be doing. There are a lot of museums around here too that are either free or have a monthly free day. My kids favortie thing we did last summer was a "summer bing." Each square had a different activity on it. I don't remember what we did when someone got a bingo, but they loved it. Guess I should get one ready for this year. :)
Can I just say that you are a great photographer? You are.
For fun stuff…it sounds like you have got it covered but I do have one game that was a hit with us as kids. I am from AZ so we did a lot of swimming. We would grease up a watermelon and play "football" in the pool with it. Needless to say it is hilarious and gets really confusing and tiring.
Here are a few ideas that have already been running through my head. (Some apply to the SLC area).
Mountain hikes, Gardening and sprinkler fun, SWEET's Candy Factory Tour is always a winner, UMFA and Natl History Museum Free Days, Wild Wild West Jordan Park is a MUST, Murray City has some cute children's concerts on Fridays lined up, Kennecot Copper Mine Visitor Center, This is the Place $2 Wednesdays, Looking for a creamery or icecream factory tour (anyone know of one? [email protected])
I have a recent SMMART Reading post about a Summer Learning Activity Calendar.
Looking forward to a great summer. I like that you actually ask your kids for input as to what they'd like to do this summer.
Amy-
First of all I never got to thank you for the cinnamon chip lead! I appreciate your time!
Our favorite summer activities are:
1) letterboxing!!!
http://www.letterboxing.org
This is our families favorite thing to do…others like geocashing or something like that.
2)Cupcake Shop hopping (I do this about three times in a summer-it's fun to discover local shops)
3)Summer Reading Program
4)Mystery Trip (don't tell the kids where you are going and take them to the zoo, children's museum, metro park, lake, etc)
5)Cooking classes with my four kids. I choose to let them help make bread or muffins, cookies, mini pizzas, etc.
6) Strawberry or raspberry picking
7)Swimming Lessons
8)Catching Fireflies
9)Fishing-the local rec center has a casting pond for kids
10)Picnic
11)Camping or backyard camping
12)Smores over the bbq
13)Discover a local farmer's market. I love showing all the different produce to the kids.
14)Scavenger hunt walk and come back with collected items and glue on a paper.
I don't know if these are helpful but I've got four kids 8 years to 3 years and these are some of the fun summer things we like to do! I can't wait to hear what other like too!
Amy,
You truly are a great photographer and I hope it's ok to say how beautiful your kids are too. :)
Well, I love this post! I do try to be organized with summer fun for my kids ages 10, 8, 5 and 3. Something that really helps me is to have a weekly outing that we do with our ward/neighborhood friends.
* Each Wednesday we will do something fun such as go to the Willow Park and zoo in Logan and then go to the Gossner Cheese Factory after ward…so good!
* Find a local park with a track and go rollerblading, scootering or biking around it
* hiking, hiking, hiking! We love to do that as a family weekly
* I love to visit each of the libraries in my county during the summer. It's fun to see the different libraries and see new games or books to check out. My kids love doing that
* Explore a new park that is a bit further from home
* Go to the Ogden Nature Center
* Do you have a Splash Pad? Those are fun and free
* Take a tour of some of the LDS church buildings in SLC
* Camp out in the backyard
* Join a 5k with your kids!
* Free bowling for kids during summer
* Check out the nearest pool by you to see if they offer discounts on certain nights or days…ours offers a 2 for 1 deal on Wed. or a Family Fun night on Mondays for only $15.
* One of the best ideas I did with my kids last year was to go to the dollar store and pick up some plastic lizards, insects or shiny beads etc. Then, I put them in water—froze it and then put more creatures in—and froze them. We had a layer effect. When all layers had frozen, I gave the kids toothbrushes and let them go to work discovering treasures! This kept them busy for over an hour or so! I loved it!
It's so fun to hear what everyone else is saying about summer fun ideas. Keep them coming! We can all use the help from each other. :)
I just did a post all about this on my blog last week! Seems like this topic is on everyone's mind. Go here to read my list: http://shannonbrown.typepad.com/life_in_general/2010/06/the-summer-fun-list.html
I also came up with a cute, easy way to display the list on our fridge.