Fun in the Sun

This summer, try these practical, cost-efficient tips for having family fun in the sun.

Goin’ Buggy

• Collect twigs, pebbles, and stems. Add these to balls of play-dough to make adorable bugs. Use pebbles for eyes; stems for antennae and stingers; and sticks for legs.
• ICK! Buy live fishing worms and learn to handle them. Then, save them from their alternative fate as fishing bait, and release them in your garden for future visits. Or, place artificial worms in a shallow wading pool and help your child catch them (following all water safety rules, of course).
• Catch lightening bugs. Then, place them in a clear, clean, salt shaker (easy to handle, holes already in lid). Enjoy this homemade night light, and set the bugs free tomorrow.
• Sing the “Itsy, Bitsy Spider” and let your child “wash the spider out” by pouring water over a plastic spider in the tub tonight. Repeat! Repeat! Repeat!
• Stamp fingerprints onto paper. Add antennae, wings, eyes, or legs with markers to make cute bug families. Laminate and use these as fun, outdoor picnic placemats.

Sizzlin’ Snacks

Antsy Appetizer:Spread peanut butter along apple slices or celery sticks and help your child add 10 ants (raisins) to the ant bed. Eat one raisin at a time while singing “There were 10 in the bed and the little one said Roll Over, Roll Over. So they all rolled over and one fell out (to be eaten by child). There were 9 in the bed…” At the end, the little one says, “Go Play” instead of “Good Night.”

Exciting Entrée:Make a Ladybug Pizza. Decorate a round pizza with red sauce. Then add sliced olives for spots and olives sliced lengthwise for a divided midsection. Hunt for ladybugs while it bakes.

Dazzling Drink:Mix orange juice, 7-Up, and sherbet. Tape paper flower patterns around the top of small cups; then, let your child drink this “flower nectar” through a small straw. Hang a hummingbird feeder and observe the small birds doing the same.

Chill Out
Hang a white pillowcase, sheet, or T-shirt on a clothesline or fence. Let your child paint the cloth with washable paints. Clean the surface with a water hose and repeat the entire process again. Or, let your child decorate the fence, sidewalk, or swing set with whipped cream. Wash it all away when finished.

While you’ve got that water hose unraveled, help your child use it to move various balls or toys across a flat surface. Also, make simple targets for your child to shoot with the stream of water. Suspend pie tins from a swing set, or be brave and hold Hoola Hoops ® at various heights as your child tries not to get you wet!

Enjoy the gifts of the season while soaking up the sun with your preschooler this summer. Make messes, get wet, and laugh!