I take my job as a stay at home mom very seriously. You gotta be kinda like a teacher! My dad always told me that I should have been a teacher, and in a way I think I did become one. Aren’t we all our children’s first teacher? In order for a teacher to have a successful year he/she needs to have a curriculum, a plan, more than just an idea about what they will be doing with their class for an entire 9 months. Any plan for success requires lots of advanced preparation. Preparation for anything you do in life is always the most important step. After the preparation is done, everything else goes smoothly, maybe a little bumpy but at least you know where you are going and you don’t have to waste time figuring it out last minute. Since the girls were babies I always had a plan, I think working part time with the older girls helped me stick to a morning routine of having everyone dressed and ready to go in the early morning. I’ve stuck to that routine soon after I had my third and retired (as my husband would put it) to be a stay at home mom. Part of my job is being ready for it every single day! My girls are used to our morning routine and they too have had an easy time getting ready for school, early outings, etc. So above all things, I believe encouraging everyone to be ready by a certain time each day will make life so, so, so much easier and I’d say stick to that during the summer too. It’s KEY for enjoying every single day of the short summer months! Below I’ve listed three more helpful tips to having a successful summer with your kids. This helps to organize part of the days and you can fill the rest with whatever your heart desires!
1.WORKBOOKS: The summer time is not just for lazy days in the sun and floating around in the pool! We want our children to remember the skills they worked so hard to learn all year long. We want to feed their brains and challenge them so that when September comes around again they are ready! Here’s an incredibly simple way to keep our children’s mind stimulated every morning and it doesn’t take more that 10-20 minutes each day. If you start preparing now, I promise it will be something you and your kids will follow through on all summer long. First, think about what you would like for each child to practice or review. Is it reading comprehension, telling time, learning money, math or is it a little bit of everything? You can keep it simple and purchase a workbook geared for each child’s level. Or you can spend some time online searching different activities, dittos that you can print out. There are so many FREE resources out there and I will list some of my favorites at the end of this post. After you’ve collected your dittos for morning work, separate them for each child. I keep a binder divided into three for each child, hole punch each ditto and that first morning of summer vacation after breakfast and a little morning TV they all get one sheet to work on. That’s all! If they ask for more go ahead and go into your prepared dittos and give them more work! I keep a pencil case in each binder with pencils, dry erase markers, etc. so they have everything they need. Below is a glimpse of what you’d find in their binders. I’m also going to add dittos into their binders from work books. For my youngest entering Kindergarten I purchased scholastic 100 words kids need to read by 1st grade
. For my two eldest I ordered a level 2 and level 4 scholastic success with grammar.
If the kids do 50 Minutes of work or more a week, you can reward them with a little treat, trinket or special outing!
2. PROJECTS: I have created a list of projects/crafts I’d like to actually do with the girls this summer. So, if I want that to happen I need to start planning them now. My goal is to have one to two projects prepared each week. Of course aside from these projects they can always paint, play with play-dough, make a collage etc. You can also find more ideas here. And links to fun projects below. You can come up with a list of your own as well, the sooner you make the list the better. This will help you to gather all the materials you will need for each project.
- Paint and wrap a twig Do you know any kid that doesn’t look for the perfect twig to use as a walking stick or treasure finder? Let them take that perfect twig or stick home and have them decorate it to keep as a walking stick for your next hike!
- Create a Sailboat I have an idea for my own sail0boat but this one over at www.creativejewishmom.com is definitely one that we are going to make too!
- Popsicle Stick Tents This is a cute and simple little Popsicle project I can see the kids enjoying and then playing with it with their little nature center.
- Vacation Souvenir Jars All kids are natural collectors, so I’m positive your kids are also shell and rock collectors! This is a great little way to turn those special ones into a keepsake.
- Fairy Bells I love this project because there are several aspects to it. First the kids can go out and look for the perfect twigs, then they get to wrap the twigs with embroidery string and add beads. I can see putting on some classical music in the background or soundscapes while doing this one!
- Nature Journal The girls love writing and drawing and have so many journals already but I figured it would be nice to keep a nature journal for the summer. We spend many days outdoors so it can be something they carry around with them for the whole summer. This might be a fun project to start on their first week off. You can make your own or use a simple composition book or sketch book and have the kids decorate it with duct tape and magazine cut outs. Inside the journal, the kids can draw, write poems, tape or glue in leaves or flowers that they find around them. The possibilities are endless.
- Bird Feeder I love this bird feeder! I have an idea to make a different one with the girls and will post when we make it, but we’re definitely making this one too! I love love our bird visits!
- A treasure Box The kids made treasure boxes a few years ago and they are still using them to store any little treasures that they find! They can definitely use another one!
- Shell Art I have a feeling we’ll be doing this throughout the summer
3. TRIPS: Of course lazy days and floating around in the pool are a big part of summer, I like to plan at least two outing a week. My girls are home bodies, they love playing at home and they never run out of things to do, but I like going on adventures and seeing new things so we compromise. Some days at home and some days out and about! If you’re a long island local or are visiting for the summer I’ve listed some of our favorite places to visit (in no particular order). There’s so much to discover here, tons of hiking trails, old estates, I wish I could list them all! You could spend the whole summer discovering Sound Ave (Take the LIE to Exit 68N to WIlliam FLoyd Parkway. Go North about seven miles to Route 25A. Go right (east) on 25A for about three miles to the beginning of Sound Avenue. This road continues for about 17 miles before becoming Main Road in Mattituck.) There’s so much to discover along this route. Farms, Museums, Fruit stands, Wineries, beautiful scenery, winding roads, and so much more!
Martha Clara’s Vinyard (Wine for adults and little fury animals for the kids) there’s a whole bunch of wineries, you can’t go wrong with whichever one you choose.
- Atlantis Marine World
- Old Westbury Gardens
- Harbes Farm
- White Post Farm
- Kalers Pond
- Yaphank Farm This place is FREE!!!! So many animals, you can feed and pet some. There’s a cute little nature park, and a wooden Train that my kids love to play on and lots of room to run around and be a kid!
- Holtsville Ecology Center Another FREE awesome place to bring the kids. Lamas, horses and bears OH MY! There’s also a huge park and a place to walk or ride your bike and plenty of bathrooms!
- Centereach Pool
- Ronkonkoma Park
- Vanderbilt Museum
- Glover’s Farm Great place for strawberry picking and other seasonal picking throughout the year. Has a playground and little gated animal farm.
- Longisland Museum History After your visit at the museum, there are beautiful grounds and tables for a perfect picnic! That’s the girls favorite part!
- Belmont Park My dad loved watching a good horse race! It was definitely very exciting as a child wishing and hoping the horse you picked in your mind would win! Our oldest was very young the last time we were at Belmont Park. I think all three girls are old enough to enjoy it now.
Visit back as I will continue to add more places to visit and FREE activity resources as well.
My favorite resources for kids Activities and printouts
- Firstpalette.com Tons of craft ideas and printouts!
- Education.com Worksheets and activities for grades preschool thru high school. You can pay for a membership and have access to any workbook for the entire year. They also have FREE worksheet available to print.
- Teacherspayteachers.com I love this site! I find FREE stuff on here all of the time! I’ve had an account with them for several years now and have never had to pay for anything! The FREE stuff is very helpful!
- janbrett.com If your kids love the Jan Brett books, this is a great site for projects and printouts associated with her fabulous books!
We were each given roses to throw onto my fathers casket at his funeral. Something made me take an extra one. When we got home, my husband took the rose, separated the petals and pressed them in between a book, put a piece of wax paper over the petals and closed the book. He then placed a huge change jar over it and left it there for a couple of weeks. You can find exact instructions from here. The days after my fathers funeral I couldn’t help but notice a cardinal coming to visit my feeder every single day! They say that a visit from a Cardinal is a visitor from heaven. So whenever I see the Cardinal I yell out “Hi dad!.”
Last year, my husband noticed a sunflower in our garden with 14 petals. That number was his moms favorite number. So we took the flower, pressed it and framed it. It’s a beautiful reminder of his mom. This is also a great idea if you’re moving and you want to have a piece of your garden with you, or a family or friend is moving, this makes a great little gift!
also made by Insect Lore. We ordered ours through Amazon.com and once we received it there was a certificated for a tube of baby ladybugs larvae. You can easily redeem your coupon online and within a week or so you will receive your tube and the exploration begins! I don’t want to spoil any of the exploring for you, but lets just say I learned a lot about how ladybugs become LADYBUGS! If you go to 
