My 10-year-old son, Baby E, is home for the summer and back to posting on Mondays [if he hears the calling]. Last week, he talked about having your kids start their Stream of Consciousness List of Things They Want To Do For The Summer. *The rules are that the kids can write down whatever they want to, and the parents can't tell them any idea is dumb or undoable.
Today, we have a snippet of what Baby E's 101 Things To Do For The Summer List looks like.
Feel free to print and use as your own mental springboard to get your kids started. HAVE FUN!
101 Things To Do For The Summer by Baby E
1. Invite a friend over
2. Go outside
3. Ride to the library and get new books
4. Go to the pool
5. Go to the park
6. Make a diorama out of a shoe box and model magic
7. Draw with crayons and black marker outlines like in TinTin
8. Bike ride with some friends
9. Pack a picnic to a new park
10. Go to the bookstore and everyone gets one new book
11. Go on a field trip to a pizza factory
12. Play a board game
13. Borrow or swap a board game with another family and learn a new game
14. Go online and learn new origami to do all together and have an origami store
15. Go online and learn new card tricks for kids and do a magic show for your family at night
16. Go to a baseball game in the afternoon
17. Play hide and seek at night with flashlights. Don't say you found them just sneak up on them
18. Make a fort in the backyard with blankets and the clothesline. Have your mom bring lunch in it
19. Have a sleep over in a tent in the backyard and have your mom bring pancakes to wake you up
20. See a movie in the afternoon even if you saw it already
21. Have a squirt gun fight with little old fashioned squirt guns not big power blasters
22. Have a water balloon fight with over a hundred balloons. Get the camouflage kind.
23. Play school and you are the teacher
24. Do sudoku
25. Make up your own crossword puzzles
26. Do a newspaper and be a reporter
27. Tell scary stories at night with the lights off downstairs and the storyteller gets a flashlight to shine on people
28. Play any sport that you make up
29. Play with your brothers and sisters
30. Have a summer party and everyone brings a bottle of soda and mentos to do outside
31. Have a lego contest with your friends. Call them to come over and make different kinds of things.
32. Have your mom send you on a scavenger hunt with your friends or brothers. (sometimes people are nice, sometimes they aren't.)
33. Make a store and sell your stuff. Buy ice cream with your money.
34. Play library/coffee shop/bookstore and have books to take out and sell pretend soda coffee
35. Play chess/checkers/ and tag
36. Have a karate chop competition
37. Have your mom fill up the backyard with all the sprinklers you have
38. Sell lemonade
39. Write mystery letters and put them in your friend's mailboxes
40. Go to a nature center that has a pond and look at bullfrogs and walk and chase butterflies but take bug spray
41. Go outside and take a huge blanket and lay down and try to make up cloud shapes from the sky
42. Have your friends come over to play with the Slip-n-die (what my mom calls it)
43. Walk downtown and meet your friends there and get an ice cream cone and then walk outside to eat it
44. Do a night time walk with flashlights and catch fireflies to keep in your room overnight
45. Make T shirts with T shirt crayons that say things you want them to say to wear for the summer
46. Play catch
47. Do a tournament that has all your friends in it and do every sport
48. Go to Netflix and watch old shows that are really old that you liked when you were little
49. Have whatever you want for lunch and make it with your mom
50. Go to an aquarium or a zoo or a museum. If it's really rainy out go to Dave & Buster's
51. Make your own comic books. Your mom can do some funny stuff if you let her
52. Make your own stickers out of white sticky labels cut in circles
53. Go buy a pet fish at a fish store. Just stay there for awhile and look at other fish too.
54. Have your mom make cupcakes and then you decorate them. Do the same with cookies.
55. Make a treasure map of the backyard and really hide something where the X is
56. Write a story and read it to your family and make pretend tickets for the show
57. Give lessons to your family in something that you know like dominos. Give domino lessons.
58. Visit a gem shop and ask if they'll let you go to the basement where they keep the really good stuff
**Note from Baby E: these are half of my ideas. I want to see the stuff you guys do, too. Bye!
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Baby E, these are terrific ideas!! I love #45.
ReplyDeleteI'm totally making a diorama. Brilliant.
ReplyDeleteI made 3 of them. A fish one, a lobster one, and a spider one. and the model magic is the only thing that works the best.
Deletefrom baby e.
A pizza factory! Brilliant!
ReplyDeleteYou won't believe it but they don't make pizzas one at a time like they do at home they do it all at one time and step by step on a conveyor belt and you can see it all through glass windows.
DeleteMany very good ideas. Pancakes in a tent sounds interesting.
ReplyDelete~Amanda @ www.UrbanEarthworm.org
How fun. I'm going to have my four year old make a list. I'm certain playing school will be on there, too... because that's what we do when we're not in school.
ReplyDeleteSchool is fun to play because it's fun to give orders.
Deletefrom Baby E
that's an awesome list! we do this each year, too. we may have to steal from your list!
ReplyDeleteLooks like he's got an awesome game plan! Now if I could just go sleep in a tent and have my mom wake me up with pancakes...;)
ReplyDeleteWith the exception of a few things, this is stuff I did when I was young. I hadn't heard of sudoku, it was peanuts rather than Mentos, I hadn't heard of Legos and Netflix hadn't been born, yet. Good list, E!
ReplyDeleteI've seen a lot of summer lists, but this is the best one I've seen by far.
ReplyDeleteIn Arizona we can get free passes to museums and the zoo from the library, so I've been taking my little sisters there this summer. When I was little, I remember going to a chocolate factory one summer, and it was awesome -- your pizza factory idea sounds like fun too!
Can't wait to see more of your list! You should probably write a book about summer for kids and I bet you would be really famous.
Thank you so much. from Baby E
DeleteThose are awesome ideas. Slip-n-die made me laugh.
ReplyDeleteIf you try it you will see those are so dangerous.
Deletefrom Baby E
ice cream most certainly must be eaten outside...and flashlight tag is def a fav of summer time...and we even play it as a family in the house....with all the lights out....oh yeah....smiles...great list e! you will have to update us with how many you get checked off this year!
ReplyDeleteHi Mr. Miller. I always check to see if you're here.
DeleteHi.
Say hi to your kids.
From me.
I so love him. He didn't mention shopping or putting on a neighborhood fashion show. I'll assume that is on the other 1/2 of his list. xo
ReplyDelete"GO OUTSIDE."
ReplyDeleteYes. That.
I like to go outside. I don't care if it's by myself.
Deletefrom baby e.
Jesus, that's stuff I did when I was a kid! Was Baby E. born in 68 too?
ReplyDeletem.
Best. List. Ever!! We have enough hills for it really to be a slip and die here. I love the scavenger hunt and multi-sprinkler idea. My kids would love this list, I will have to show it to them so they can make their own. My son would love the lego competition too, really great ideas!!
ReplyDeleteBaby E - you are the coolest coolest!
ReplyDeleteUrm. Fresh out of ideas. That's why I need your other half.
This is JUST the list my twin nephews need so I'm sending it to them right now. Thanks for making it! And have fun doing all of these things this summer!
ReplyDeleteThis list is awesome! I can do a few things with my 5yo but can't wait until he's a little older to do all these things!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great list, most of my kids aren't old enough to write yet but I think I'm going to sit down with them and help them make a list today. Thanks Baby E!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great list! I really want to go on a slip and die myself but am concerned about the not being over a 100lb warning...
ReplyDeleteOh E, I could barely get my dughter off the couch today, let alone convince her to think of something to do. I think your ideas are better than mine, so I will be better armed the next time I make a suggestion!
ReplyDelete