Hopefully, you’ve made your home environment to nurture your children’s minds and creativity. Varied real life experiences provide your children with subject matter to contemplate and play. Let your children participate in what you enjoy and you will teach your children to enjoy those things.
Besides real-life experiences, books are also great resources for active and creative minds. (Screen time, on the other hand could be disastrous.)
My brother and I used to fish over the railing of our covered back porch…down among the metal garbage cans, even on rainy days. The fishing was especially good when David would go down the three steps, among the trash cans, and tie a stick onto our strings.
We even had something to eat when I found the old Crisco cans being saved for storing grease, up in a cupboard. We could scrape out a tiny bit of Crisco on our fingers and, amazingly, that was just enough to satisfy our fisherman type appetites until Mom called lunch. One day she even let us eat our sandwiches on our boat. Now that WAS exciting!
Dining alfresco: Who doesn’t love to eat outside on a patio or under a porch? Summer picnic lunches can be a treat for kids. Sandwiches on a plate and pieces of fruit can be a real treasure to eat outside.
Fun doesn’t have to be complicated, it can be very simple.
Our family’s shared reading of the Swiss Family Robinson, led to many happy hours of play as our children enacted their own similar adventures patterned after this family, deserted on an island.
Then, there was the rodeo, which must be re-enacted. Fortunately, our golden lab loved the kids. Although he was light colored, he served pretty well for bull riding. Not that he tried to buck them off, it only looked like it when they tried to ride him.
Of course, we have to mention the perseverance of the dogs who were dressed in baby clothes, the kittens walked in doll strollers and the chickens rounded up with hoola hoops as the cowboys and cowgirls trekked around the range.
Life is not all play, so contributing to summer work is also important. The garden can be weeded while looking forward to splashing in a pool or running through sprinklers when the work is done. Extra tiring projects might be followed up with lemonade or a popsicle. Our children studied year-round. Sometimes they enjoyed picking their own place in the yard to read their book during their quiet time.
One of the greatest investments we made as our family grew older was a swimming pool.
We spent many happy hours in that pool together. We had teenagers, young children, toddlers and a baby. Everyone had fun together, while each one participated in activities at their own level.
Their studies were done much more easily when there was pool time to look forward to in the afternoon. And since swimming always makes one hungry, snacks would appear. Sometimes I’d even feed the barking seals directly in the pool.
While summer time can be a busy time, be careful not to be too busy with outside planned activities that you don’t take time to enjoy the simple things, or that your children don’t have the time and freedom needed to think, grow and create.
Today should be a day that enriches your life, and the lives of your children, giving you cherished memories for all seasons.
