10 Ways To Prepare For Summer With the Kiddos

Trust me, this will give you SO MUCH PEACE! Summer meals can be as easy as corn on the cob and watermelon, but if you want to save time and stress, make a plan now. Create a 6-week meal plan of summer family favorites with coordinating shopping lists that can be rotated. This way, all you need to do is grab your lists and shop. If you want to save even more time, consider utilizing your local grocery store’s pick up or delivery system. Many chains now offer online ordering and curbside pickup, some will even deliver directly to your home for a small fee! Amazon Fresh is now available in many areas as well. Crock pot and grill recipes are great for summer because they keep the heat out of the kitchen, cold salads and sandwiches are good choices too.

A snack station for kids to choose from will also help shave time off in the kitchen and eliminate those mid-morning and mid-afternoon “crankies” that often arise when kids are playing hard outside. According to your family’s needs, come up with guidelines for your snack station so that kids are not just filling up on snacks for the day instead of meals. For example, allow the children to choose one fresh fruit serving with a carb or protein serving for each snack time only. Make sure the kids know when they are allowed to have snacks and when they are not. Consider storing snacks in their own special baskets or containers in the pantry or the fridge so that no one will take them outside of snack time. If your kiddos are fans of frozen treats like popsicles, stock up at the beginning of summer with a case or two of inexpensive ‘freeze-pops’, this way, refills are only as far as your pantry. Also- don’t forget beverages! Part of our evening routine is to prepare beverages for the next day- lemonade, ice tea, fruit-infused waters… we make and store them in the fridge for when just tap water won’t do.

For our family, we need some base rules to maintain order. Just because it is summer, doesn’t mean it is a free-for-all! Some basic rules we all agree on are: No friends till after breakfast and chores, Check the core schedule to find out if what you want to do is at the appropriate time, If You’re bored, it is NOT someone else’s job to entertain you- get creative!, our normal house rules continue whether it is summer or not, water play is for OUTSIDE ONLY, and so on… Because each family is unique, you need to decide what your “rules” will be but we have found that doing this helps to eliminate, or at least lessen, most of those stressful moments and situations that are common during this season. IMPORTANT: Post a copy of your rules somewhere where the whole family can see them and refer to them on a regular basis. Often, all I have to do is walk over to the poster, point and a situation dissolves peacefully.

Again, to maintain order. A summer schedule can be as structured or as loose as you want and need it to be, but you will not regret making one. Here’s a loose example:

Wake up. Breakfast. Chores.

Outside with friends.

10 am- snack station is open.

12 pm- LUNCH Friends can come play inside or you can play outside again.

2 pm is quiet time.

3:30 pm- snack station is open. FREE time till dinner.

Outside & Inside clean up before dinner

6 pm dinner Family Time

8 pm- Evening routine, baths/showers

Hang out till bedtime.

This schedule works well for my older and littles. It may look different for your family, but having a schedule helps kids to have some structure in their day and something to look forward to from one hour to the next plus frees you from having to entertain them all day long.

Plastic totes with fun toys and games, water play, etc. A small table and chairs, small buckets and items to make mud pies- and a hose to clean them off when they are done. Sidewalk chalk and bubbles. Nature field guides and insect nets to catch bugs and frogs with. A container to capture and observe their finds with a magnifying glass.  Having these items ready for the children to use ahead of time will provide hours of fun and less stress for you. Have a system in place to keep it all organized and make sure kiddos put back what they use. Make a small potted garden they can tend to and invest in some classic yard games they could play with. The point is to give them the tools to occupy themselves well, but also to have some fun things to do with them at home.

Art and craft supplies, board and card games, puzzles, book selections, maybe some fun themed ‘discovery kits’ like Lego challenges, make your own slime, build a mini beach, etc… Discovery kits are great ways to keep the learning going through the summer in fun ways. Some kits can be bought already assembled like a Build Your Own Robot Kit, but I love assembling our own. The themes are endless. Plastic shoe boxes from Walmart are great for adding supplies and instructions. For example, once I made a Make Your Own Stop Motion Movie Kit for the week. I added Lego mini figures, Clay, mini lights, colored pencils for drawing and coloring backgrounds, string, etc… when the kids wanted to do it, I got them the app on their tablets, gave them some poster board and they were off and creating— FOR THREE DAYS. And a whole lot of learning took place too!

Another proactive way to prepare for summer is to decide what everyone’s chores will be ahead of time so that the house can continue to run smoothly. What needs to happen in the common areas of the home to keep order and cleanliness? What needs to happen outside every day to make sure the yard won’t look like a bomb went off? Take 30 minutes to an hour each night or morning to put things back in order and enlist the kiddos to share the workload. Let this be non-negotiable and you’ll enjoy so much more of your summer, I promise! Make a simple chore chart and post it for everyone to reference. Maybe one child will dust and the other will vacuum. Maybe they ALL will help clean the common areas and outside. Who will do dishes and clean the bathroom? Who will help fold and put laundry away? Decide together and stick with it.

They WILL get bored and they WILL expect you to do something about it. Shock them and let them figure it out on their own. Kids NEED to be bored to get creative. If your house is anything like mine, there will be protests, meltdowns, and tears but, eventually, they will figure out how to entertain themselves. And they will grow from it. You will have much more peace and satisfaction in knowing your kiddos won’t be dependent on entertainment to keep them busy.

Bucket lists are great, but they can quickly become very stressful if they are too rigid. Want to visit that beach you’ve never seen before? Allow for some downtime to enjoy it. Visiting a new city? Don’t cram 3 park and museum visits all in one day… Don’t be so consumed with the bucket list that you forget to ‘be present’ to make fond memories. Get a planner or calendar, and put your plans into writing. Decide what your top 3 bucket list items are for the summer and the minor 3, and then commit to making those happen. Everything else will be bonus summer happenings. Don’t make it all about the big things either– maybe you’ve always wanted to see a beautiful sunrise, or maybe your kids want to make their version of the world’s longest slip and slide. Sometimes the best memories are simple and inexpensive, ask your kiddos what they think would be an epic thing to do this summer- their answers might surprise you!

 At the beginning of Spring, we do routine maintenance (check tires, fluids, etc) and clean our vehicles thoroughly and make a couple of road trip kits to keep in the car all summer for impromptu and planned trips.

The first kit we assemble is an “On-the-Go Picnic Kit”. In a medium plastic bin, we put paper plates, plastic cups, a blanket, tablecloth, napkins, baby wipes, garbage bags and plasticware. Other items we have included are powdered Gatorade, a pitcher and long handled soon. When we’re out and about, if we decide to stop somewhere interesting, or if we have planned a day trip- we have everything we need to serve a meal. We often stop for a $5 dollar pizza and some salad and fruit.

The second “kit” we assemble is a ‘Comfort and Travel Kit”. A couple throw blankets and small pillows, first aid kit with common meds, sunscreen, bug spray, an extra charging cable and battery for phone, hair ties for the girls, sun hats, nature field guides, maps/atlas, binoculars, magnifying glass, and a couple of lightweight backpacks.

Other Items are added to the trunk as needed: life jackets, camera, rubber boots, sand toys, a good book, beach chairs, etc…

By keeping a good portion of these items packed neatly in your trunk, there’s no stopping you from enjoying summer days to their fullest.

Are you going to use your phone camera for most of your memory-preserving, or will you use another type of camera? Always pack extra batteries and make sure your phone stays charged. Some families take a group photo near landmarks, others like more candid photos as a way of preserving memories. Think about storage for your photos too— digital or a scrapbook? Do you want to collect something as a keepsake from each thing you do this summer? Some people collect rocks, seas shells, etc… and they write on them to remind them of where they’ve been. Whichever way you decide to preserve your family adventures, make a plan now so that you don’t regret missing that picture or collecting the seashell.

How do you prepare for summer? Share your comments below!