Boredom Busters

By Angela Lewis

Many children are counting the remaining days of school and many parents are wondering how they will keep their children busy for two and a half months. Having structured, educational, and safe activities can keep children engaged as well as very entertained. While sending children to day camps or overnight camps may be costly for many families' budgets, there are many other fun-filled activities to keep their minds occupied.

Start a journal
Have the children start a journal for the summer. They can record daily activities or just write down their thoughts and feelings. This will keep them writing all summer long.

Start a collection
Being a "collector" is part of growing up. Have your child start a new collection over the summer. Ideas for collections would be: pop bottle lids, key chains, neat rocks, or shells.

Host a neighborhood Olympics
Gather the neighborhood children around for a morning of fun and laughter. Organize different games such as the 3-legged race or a jump rope contest. Enter as individuals or as a family. Give out replica medals to the winners.

Have the kids make dinner
Have your children make the menu for dinner, then take them to the store and buy the ingredients, and help them prepare dinner. This could be a great learning experience while you teach your children about measuring and the do's and don'ts of cooking.

Make a time capsule
Capture the moment! Have your child find a shoebox and include memorabilia from this summer. Include pictures, menus to show prices, favorite toys, and letters to the future. Mark "Don't open until the year 2015" on the box and decorate the outside.

Make a collage
Have your children find different little items in their room that represent themselves and glue the items on an unused Styrofoam meat tray. McDonald's toys, colored rocks, or other objects of interest would be great to use. Make sure to tell them to write their name in bright colored markers somewhere on the tray.

Take a field trip to China
Visit China by going to http://www.chinavista.com/travel/virtualtours.html Take a virtual tour by perusing through the photos and engage in reading about China. Follow-up by preparing rice and eating with chopsticks. Read the book Lon Po Po (the Chinese version of Little Red Riding Hood) and compare and contrast the two books. Go to http://chineseculture.about.com/library/name/blname.htm and see how your name is written in Chinese.

Have a post card scavenger hunt
Write a letter to friends or family members around the country. Ask them to send a postcard from their city or town. See how many postcards you can collect.

Have a camp out
Go camping in your own back yard! Pitch a tent, tell campfire stories, and even build a small fire if at all possible. Don't forget the marshmallows, chocolate bars, and graham crackers. Invite neighborhood friends for added fun.

Join a library summer reading program
Pittsburg Public Library has a summer reading program just for kids. This is free-of-charge and offers incentives for reading books. In addition, they offer a story hour where young kids listen to stories and make crafts.

Go on a nature hike
There are many different places where you can take your kids on a nature hike and you don't even have to travel very far! Wilderness Park in Frontenac, Kansas has a beautiful nature trail that can be enjoyed by your family. For the families that have an infant or a toddler that wouldn't be able to walk the entire trail, this is for you, too. The trail is very stroller friendly.

Go on a picnic
Going on a picnic can be a lot of fun for the entire family. Picking a park that has equipment or a lake would add more to do for the kids. Bring along the fishing poles and worms!

Visit the local museum
Visiting the Crawford County Historical Museum can be a very educational field trip for the kids. Put together a scavenger hunt and have them find various artifacts throughout the tour.

This is just a beginning of what you can do with your children over the summer. It is very important to keep them learning throughout the summer. As we all know, learning can be fun!

Angela Martino-Lewis