Into Summer

Summer is a favorite season for many people. It stays lighter out longer, the weather is gorgeous, it is swimming season, there are cookouts, and of course there is no school. Our oldest got out of school for the summer on June 4. Our preschoolers got out on June 21. We are definitely into summer.I love having this time with our kids, especially our three kids that have been in school all year. I have a lot of things planned so they have a fun summer, but also so they still learn even though they aren't in school. For our family of 7, we need structure and a schedule to keep our house running smoothly.I made a summer schedule with some times in the day where there will be fun and learning going on. I think our kids are just as excited as I am.

If you are a parent and at a loss on ideas of things to do for the summer with your kids, I hope this helps. I used to work at the YMCA during summer breaks and the YMCA plans theme based weeks for each week of the summer. My idea for what I'm doing with our kids this summer, came from that. This week was Beach Week. Some of the other weeks I have planned are Patriotic Week (everything will be based around July 4th), Nature and Science Week, Outer Space Week, and Animal Week. I know it probably seems like a lot for me to do with 5 kids. I want to make sure our older three kids who are in school continue to learn so they are ready and possibly ahead for next school year.

This past week as I mentioned was Beach Week. I taught our kids things about the beach, the ocean, ocean animals, and things about summer in general. Our kids definitely had fun learning about all of those things. I squeezed in time to go outside and a trip to our local park. This week was the first week that we did a theme week because my preschoolers only got out of school last week and my oldest had a few days where he went to an art camp.

The crafts we did this week to go with our theme were an ocean scene with fish, and a painted beach ball. What I liked about these crafts was that they were age appropriate from our two year old to our seven year old. It gave our older 2 kids a chance to practice their hand writing and to learn how to spell new words. It helped our younger 2 boys to learn colors, numbers, and shapes.

For the ocean scene you will need:
-Blue construction paper
-Blue crayons
-White paper
-Any color paint
-Fish shape template
-Scissors
-Glue
-Black marker

How we created the ocean scene:
I had our kids paint the white paper any color and all colors that they wanted to. While the paint dried, they colored the blue construction paper with a blue crayon to really give it an ocean look. Once the paint dried on the white paper, I assisted our kids in cutting out fish shapes. We glued the fish to the colored construction paper. I let our older 2 kids write fish and ocean on their papers.

 For the beach ball craft you will need:
-A beach ball template
-Yellow construction paper
-Paint
-Scissors
-Glue
-Marker

How we made the beach ball:
The kids painted their beach ball with their finger tips and did any color they wanted to. Once the paint dried, I assisted in cutting the beach ball out and we glued it to the yellow construction. Our older 2 kids wrote beach ball on their paper.

Here are some more pictures of this past week.

My oldest after art camp.

Painting their paper which we cut fish shapes from.

Water gun fighting.

Fun at the park.

 

Conversation for my readers, how is your summer going? If you have kids, do you plan to try these crafts? What fun things do you have planned for your summer? 

I hope everyone is having a great summer so far! Stay tuned for more posts about our summer and other things going on in our family. As always, keep up the faith, hope, and love. Thank you for reading! Please share my post if you like these crafts!