Has summer boredom for the kids set in yet? Already been going for weeks, you say? Well, hold on, the cavalry’s comin’! Here’s an idea we’ve used for a few summers that helps. We have Project Jars filled with ideas. This requires a little work from Mom at the beginning, but then once that’s done, the jar business runs itself for the rest of summer. You fill a big jar with strips of paper on which you’ve written ideas of things to do. (And feel free to decorate that jar if you feel so inclined, which I don’t.)
Include creative tasks, such as Draw a Cartoon, Make an Origami Animal, Create String Art, Draw Outside with Sidewalk Chalk. Throw in a few helpful tasks, such as Organize the Shoes in Your Closet, Sweep the Kitchen Floor, Ask Mom What Help She Needs. Make these short tasks or else they’ll never reach in the jar! Include some things that are fun but require some reading, like Plan a Trip to a Favorite Place, Find Out When the Next Meteor Shower Happens, Find a Funny Limerick and Read It to Mom, Find Out What Time It Is Right Now in New Guinea. Add some random funness: Pick a Favorite Snack and Have Mom Put It on Her Grocery List, Run Through the Sprinklers, March Backwards Through the House Singing “Yankee Doodle Dandy”. I also included a few that said to come up with three more ideas, write them on strips of paper, and add them to the jar.
Our rule is that, if you don’t want to do what you draw from the jar, you can draw a second time, but you must choose one of those two to do. If you draw a strip that says, ‘Free-For-All’, you can keep drawing papers until you get one you want to do.
We put a second jar out labeled ‘Done.’ I bet you know what to do with that one. If you get through the whole jar before summer’s over, you just dump them back into the original jar and start again.
Our jars have grown as the kids’ interests have changed and as we’ve thought of more good ideas. But we’ve kept the jars from year to year, so it saves time in starting from scratch thinking up ideas. Have fun getting creative and happy summer!
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