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Keeping the kids busy

At this point, some of you have already been home for a month, and you might be pulling your hair out trying to keep the kids busy and happy! The best and brightest blogging teacher mommies are linking up to tell you how they are keeping their kids busy and happy. 
Summer Fun With the Kids
If you are a blogger link up with us too. If you are a reader, please feel free to tell us how you are keeping your kids busy in the comments section. 
I am hoping that this little linky can give us lots of fun ideas to have the best summer ever! Please share your ideas with us even if you are thinking, “Oh everybody knows about  Shaving Cream Day”. 
Please share anyway because this idea might be new to someone.
What ??? You have never heard of Shaving Cream Day!?! I got the idea from Train Up A Child.
Shaving Cream Fun
Oh it’s fun! Big fun… Grab a baby pool big enough to sit in and a few cans of shaving cream. Give the shaving cream to your kids and tell them your only rule is the shaving cream and the kids stay inside the pool…. then let them have at it….
Next to the pool, place some toy cars, sidewalk chalk, and some google eyes. Here is what your kids might do….
1. Decorate each other with shaving cream
2. If you add a few cars to the mix they will burry the cars make a path for the cars to drive in…
3. Spread a thin layer of shaving cream over the whole pool and slip and slide around in it and write stuff
4. Smile
5. Get clean
When you can tell the fun is winding down, add the hose with barely a trickle and add that to the mix!
Next Week!

This project is going to take some doing…. My father-in-law is ready to take on the challenge! Here are step by step directions on how to make this.
Michelle Oaks made this Bucket List of Summer Fun and I love her forever and I love her for always because this is so fun and gives great ideas for keeping your family entertained!
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It is a freebie on her blog. She provided some summer fun ideas…. Her cards go in a bucket, hence the name, but I hung mine on the Giant Wall Calendar I made!  Oh how I love this!!!
Wall Calendar to keep track of summer fun


Here is how I did it!
Use Ribbon and GIANT push pins to make a wall calendar of vaction fun
I used giant push pins and ribbon to create laundry line of sorts. Don’t cut the ribbon at the end in case you need to make adjustments.
Use GIANT push pins to hold the calendar up
I taped clothespins onto laminated calendar squares.  I used scotch lamination paper because it makes regular paper thick like it is cardstock.  I painted the clothes pins because black looks nicer in my house.
Making A wall calendar
Then I hung them onto the ribbon.  Be sure you get the ribbon deep into the “mouth” of the clothespin, as in, as far up as you can go.  If you don’t it flips over like this…
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Now your clip can hold Fandango tickets, family plans, baseball tickets, camping reservations, or bucket list pages from Michelle. To finish it off,  I tied ribbons on the big push pins to make it look prettier. 
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To download your own black and white calendar numbers, just like mine, click the graphic below.
Download now
I am doing this to entice my little guy into being excited about putting down his DS and living a little! Do any of you have a love/hate relationship with your child + technology?  I am mean seriously!
I am thankful when I can get an hour of peace and quite, but an hour of screens is not so great for him. It’s hard on his eyes, and I really believe that much rapid fire interaction makes him impatient with real life things. Pre-DS he used to love digging in his sand box, coloring, jumping on his trampoline. He will still do all these things, but after 10 minutes he wants to get back to a screen.  I know part of this is growing up, but I really do believe, “Too many screens make you mean.” I see it in my guy. He gets angry at frustrating levels. He gets annoyed when his time is up. He gets sad when he forgets to charge it.  I mean all of this stress over a toy!  Hence the wall. He needs some distractions, human interactions, and memories! Kids won’t choose this for themselves. At least mine won’t. I have to do it for him.

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Seeing the fun for the day and the next day all strung up on the wall seems to be thrilling.  My husband brought up a good point with his question of, “ So bubbles and side walk chalk, that’s fun, but what do we do you do with the rest of the day?”  Sometimes kids [and their parents] have a hard time “seeing" everything they really have to do. To combat this, and the whining,  I took pictures of everything Jackson can do and  made“free play cards”.  It’s working so far!
Keeping kids busy during the summer can be tricky so take pictures of all the activities your child can choose to stay busy
How is your summer going ? I am dying to know! Link up, comment, and help me plan next week using some of your great ideas!
Summer Fun With the Kids