Summer challenge sticks

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 Maryanne
  Life as we know it

This summer I decided to bypass the complaining about not having anything to do by coming up with summer challenges. We have challenges that we choose from each day to do together, and then another set that are for when the girls are individually bored and need something to do on their own. I wrote all of them on Popsicle sticks and color coded the tops of the sticks with washi tape to indicate what category of challenge it is. (Mon-Friday we pick from a different category.) Then each category got it’s own little plastic box that is conveniently separated into two segments so that we can keep the already done sticks away from the still-to-do sticks. It’s worked pretty well so far; the girls are excited every day to find out what’s on our stick for the day, and it gives some focus to the day.

Here’s the list. There are more movies and games than we will actually use, and obviously those are geared to the games and movies that we have (as are the trips), but you could easily make an inventory of what you have or want your kids to experience.

COOKING CHALLENGES:

  1. Make pizza
  2. Make pancakes
  3. Make chocolate covered strawberries
  4. Make a cake
  5. Make snow cones
  6. Make tortillas
  7. Bake a pie
  8. Make donuts
  9. Make pudding
  10. Make rice krispy treats
  11. Make cupcakes
  12. Make popsicles

CRAFTING CHALLENGES:

  1. Create shell creatures (collage items and googly eyes on to shells)
  2. Make art with pastels
  3. Paint with watercolors
  4. Paint like Pollock
  5. Scratch Magic Fashion
  6. Draw a background for your sister to stamp
  7. Create rock monsters
  8. Make a multi media picture
  9. Make a basket from newspaper
  10. Use the collage box
  11. Make friendship bracelets
  12. Sew an animal
  13. Make a mosaic
  14. Paint a thing (a paper mache animal from the craft section at Target)
  15. Make things with Playdoh
  16. Color with the rubbing plates

TRIP CHALLENGES:

  1. Go to Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
  2. Go to Obstacle Warrior Kids
  3. Go to Sea Life Grapevine Aquarium
  4. Go to Kimbell Art Museum
  5. Go to Forth Worth Science Museum
  6. Go to Amon Carter Museum
  7. Go to Kidmania
  8. Go the the Aboretum
  9. Go to the Perot Museum
  10. Go to NickelRama
  11. Go to Dallas Zoo
  12. Go to Dallas Museum of Art
  13. Go to Heard Museum

ACTIVITY CHALLENGES:

  1. Nerf Gun battle
  2. Go swimming
  3. Play in the hose
  4. Water gun battle
  5. Go roller skating
  6. Go to the splash pad

INDIVIDUAL CHALLENGES:

  1. Do LinkIt puzzles
  2. Do a jigsaw puzzle
  3. Play with the pattern blocks
  4. Do Eureka puzzles
  5. Make pictures with tangrams
  6. Do QBitz puzzles
  7. Play with Gravity Maze

MOVIE CHALLENGES (a mix of movies they’ve seen and some they haven’t yet):

  1. Boxtrolls
  2. Winnie the Pooh
  3. Prince of Egypt
  4. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
  5. Matilda
  6. Nanny McFee
  7. Cats
  8. Wizard of Oz
  9. Jungle Book
  10. Ernest and Celestine
  11. Hotel Transylvania
  12. Shaun the Sheep
  13. Into the Woods
  14. Tink and the Neverbeast
  15. Cinderella
  16. Emperor’s New Groove
  17. Mary Poppins
  18. Snow White
  19. Sound of Music
  20. Tarzan
  21. Cats Don’t Dance
  22. Pippi Longstocking
  23. Muppet Movie (They get to choose which one)
  24. Little Mermaid
  25. The Pirates
  26. Beauty and the Beast
  27. Brave
  28. Monster in Paris
  29. Hello Dolly
  30. I need to come up with another one because it bugs me that there’s not an even 30.

So that’s our plan. We’re also doing some educational stuff, which we’re calling Science Camp, which I’ll write about in another post.  The girls are reading a lot, and there’s never a dearth of paper with drawings all over them.  We have a new trampoline, and Tiny is taking swimming lessons; just how summer should be.

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