Okay, this? Best parenting advice I’ve read in a long time, and very in line with my ever-strengthening philosophy of giving kids room to be kids. Thank you to my friend and longtime reader Kim for sharing this article in the weekend Globe and Mail: Bucket list for kids: 50 things to do before they’re 12
I love this, because I think each and every one of these is an excellent activity — and yet it makes me sad and kind of tired. Do we as parents really need to make an itemized checklist of experiences our kids must achieve? Meh, maybe the grey Ottawa skies and cold, damp temperatures are making me cantankerous. It actually sounds like a road map to a pretty great summer, if spring ever decides to return.
Here’s the official list, editorialized with my own local spin:
1. Climb a tree
2. Roll down a really big hill (Mooney’s Bay has a great one for this!)
3. Camp out in the wild (did you know there’s a campground on Prince of Wales just north of Hunt Club? Practically downtown!)
4. Build a den
5. Skim a stone (I recommend Britannia Beach for this one!)
6. Run around in the rain (or puddles, maybe?)
7. Fly a kite
8. Catch a fish with a net
9. Eat an apple straight from a tree (we love Kilmarnock and Cannamore orchards)
10. Play conkers
11. Throw some snow (can we wait until December for this one, please?)
12. Hunt for treasure on the beach
13. Make a mud pie
14. Dam a stream
15. Go sledging
16. Bury someone in the sand
17. Set up a snail race
18. Balance on a fallen tree
19. Swing on a rope swing (the rope swing is hands down the kid-favourite feature in our backyard)
20. Make a mud slide
21. Eat blackberries growing in the wild (there are – or were – wild raspberries growing along the boardwalk at the Chapman Mills Conservation Area)
22. Take a look inside a tree
23. Visit an island
24. Feel like you’re flying in the wind
25. Make a grass trumpet
26. Hunt for fossils and bones
27. Watch the sun wake up
28. Climb a huge hill
29. Get behind a waterfall (or maybe go caving?)
30. Feed a bird from your hand (bring some seed to the Lime Kiln Trail or Hogsback Falls for this one!)
31. Hunt for bugs
32. Find some frogspawn
33. Catch a butterfly in a net
34. Track wild animals
35. Discover what’s in a pond (Mud Lake is great for this!)
36. Call an owl
37. Check out the crazy creatures in a rock pool
38. Bring up a butterfly
39. Catch a crab
40. Go on a nature walk at night
41. Plant it, grow it, eat it
42. Go wild swimming
43. Go rafting
44. Light a fire without matches (um, no thanks)
45. Find your way with a map and a compass
46. Try bouldering
47. Cook on a campfire
48. Try abseiling
49. Find a geocache
50. Canoe down a river (although you might want to wait until they’re older than 3 and 5 yrs old!)
I figure the boys have a good half of the items crossed off, and I can tell you for sure I won’t be taking them abseiling any time soon – although the zip-line at a local aerial park is not out of question. What do you think? Is there anything on here a child of 12 can or cannot live without doing? Something you’d add to the list?
It’s a snow day here in Ottawa today. The buses have been cancelled and while the schools are still open, we’ve decided to let the boys stay home. I usually ship ‘em off as even in the most treacherous conditions I think they’re better off for a few hours at school than at home, but by a fluke of scheduling both Beloved and I were home anyway, so we let them stay home for a treat.
Now that the kids are older, they’re better at entertaining themselves even on a long day at home. They like to play board games, and we’ve always got a craft of some sort on the go. And of course, there are the ubiquitous video games.
Snow days are such a break from routine that it’s fun to find something unique to do. Just a few days ago, I blogged a few more of my favourite indoor activities, including bead crafts and scavenger hunts. If you’re feeling like comfort food, how about baking up some rainbow cupcakes? Or maybe just whipping up a batch of home-made playdoh?
It’s pretty easy to pass the day with older kids, but sometimes not so much with babies, toddlers and preschoolers. Conveniently, my friends at Fisher-Price just shared this awesome new tool for inspiring playtime with your kids. I remember how hard it was coming up with ideas on how to play with a baby, especially when Tristan was a newborn, but there are dozens – maybe even hundreds – of great suggestions here on games to play with kids from newborn to school age.
From the simple idea of tummy talking for babies under 3 mos to the classic “red light, green light” for toddlers to storybook theatre for older kids, there are tonnes of great ideas. I like how each game also has information about which learning skill you’re stimulating and even some basic safety cautions. Wouldn’t this be a great tool for a young babysitter looking for ways to interact with kids as well? I really wish I’d had access to this when I was a new mom!
As I’m writing this post, I’m remembering how long those early days could seem, home with a baby who couldn’t entertain himself with Super Mario Bros or endless episodes of Max and Ruby. Isn’t it funny how while you’re in them, it seems like those days will never end and suddenly you realize that they’re long behind you?
If you could make one suggestion to help another parent pass a long winter day at home with the kids, what would it be?
(Disclosure: I am part of the Fisher-Price Play Panel and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.)
With back to school starting so late this year, it seems like Christmas was ages ago. I don’t know about your kids, but at our house the kids are twitchy. Most of the gifts have been examined and played with, the family visits are past and the Christmas decorations stashed away for another year — and we still have a couple of days to kill savour together before the kids go back to school.
Are your kids getting squirrelly too? I thought I’d pull a few ideas from my archives to share, in case you missed them the first time around.
1. Digital camera scavenger hunt
You don’t need to use a camera for this – the low-tech version is just as fun – but the kids love the added element of the camera. Maybe they got one of these for Christmas? Make up a list of things outside like “blue car” or “tall tree” or “mail box” or whatever is in your neighbourhood, and then set the kids free to find the things as a team. It can be as short or long a list as you think they have the attention-span to complete, and by using the camera you don’t have the problem of what to do with the stuff they collect (a problem we’ve had with other scavenger hunts, and on a daily basis simply because my kids are natural scavengers!) Rainy day or freezing cold outside? Make it an indoor scavenger hunt with things like, “Daddy’s socks” and “blue shampoo bottle.”
2. What’s in the bag?
You need a bag about the size of a shoe box for this. A fabric bag is best, like a shoe bag, and a recyclable shopping bag works well, too. You have to do a bit of advanced legwork for this one. Collect a bunch of stuff that has interesting shapes, sizes and textures. Dinky cars, a carrot, a bar of soap, a sock — whatever! One at a time, put an item in the bag and see if your child can guess what it is by feel alone. So simple, and surprisingly entertaining. We always end up laughing.
3. Beads
Don’t just buy bulk beads from the craft store, though; bring them to an actual bead store and let them pick four or five “special” beads from the bins, and then make up the difference with pony beads or other plain beads. You can also get a mixed bag of discards… my boys loved the ones that looked like crystals in a bag I thought was rather uninspiring. Letter beads are also a hit if you don’t mind forking over a bit more cash. And make sure you don’t choose the cord that is plastic and stretchy – it’s impossible to knot. Get nice thready cord.
When they finished making necklaces for everyone in the house and bracelets for Granny and Papa Lou and the rest of the extended family, all the Webkinz got new collars and we made enough bookmarks to last a year. You can also get little key rings to make backpack decorations. My kids LOVED the bead craft!
4. Treasure maps
This is similar to the scavenger hunt. One year our nanny made up a treasure hunt for each of the boys for their birthday gift, with ten rhyming clues leading them throughout the house. If I didn’t love her before this, when I read the work that had gone into her clues I knew she was terrific. Sample: “Under the place you sit to dine, you will find clue number 9!” The treasure at the end can be something small, because it’s the hunt that makes up the fun. If you’re feeling less wordy, you can just draw a treasure map with a nice big X that marks the spot.
5. Magazine cut-out books
I could spend hours doing this when I was a kid. Find some old magazines and catalogues destined for the blue box, and some construction paper. Cut pictures, words and letters out of the magazines to create a little story book. So simple, but creative and entertaining.
How are you planning to spend the last few days before the kids go back to school?
I simply had to interrupt my series of post-Blissdom Canada posts to share this awesome Halloween fun idea with you!
Last night, I was loading the dishwasher and checking homework and doing laundry and preparing lunches and all the other fun things we do between dinnertime and bedtime when I heard a very faint knock on the door. I figured it was Beloved, who had been teaching late, and that one of the kids had slipped the lock on the door, so sent Lucas to open the door for him. When Lucas reported that nobody was there, I stuck my nose out, wondering if maybe the screen door had come loose again.
This was sitting on the porch:
A plastic cauldron filled with inexpensive Halloween treats and toys, dropped anonymously on the porch — how amazing is that?! The boys and I were tickled orange and black! Also in the cauldron were two pieces of paper. One had a big black BOO printed on it, and the other had a happy little Halloween poem and a set of instructions that said:
- Enjoy your treat.
- Place your BOO on your front door.
- Now you have 24 hours to copy this twice, make 2 treats, copy 2 BOOs and secretly deliver them to 2 neighbours who do not have a BOO on their front door.
- Then watch how far this spreads by Halloween.
Is that not AWESOME? I’d never heard of anything like this, but Twitter seemed to have heard of this and called it “ghosting” and “BOOing” — apparently it’s a thing now. And don’t you want to totally start it in your neighbourhood? Well, you should! And to help, I’ve scanned the original poem and BOO sign and saved them as PDFs in dropbox, so you can print out your own copies and start the BOO flowing in your neighbourhood!
What fun! Now I’m off to BOO two of my neighbours, too!
Here’s a quick and simple idea for Friday Family Fun: pop some popcorn, find some sugary snacks and pop a movie into the player of your choice. Such a simple pleasure, and the boys LOVE it when we do this. It’s especially delicious if you’re willing to let them stay up half an hour or an hour past their bedtime on movie night. Is there anything better than snuggling under a blanket, sharing a popcorn bowl and watching a movie together after a busy day of summer fun?
To give you something new to share on your next family movie night, I’m happy to offer brand-new-in-the-wrapper copies of Diary of a Wimpy Kid and the sequel, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Roderick Rules, thanks to our friends at GCI Group.
Want to win one? Here’s how!
- To enter, leave a comment on this post suggesting a great movie choice for a family movie night.
- One entry per person.
- The prize is a set of two DVDs, Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Roderick Rules.
- Contest opens today, August 19 and runs through Tuesday August 23, 2011 at noon EDT.
- One winner will be chosen via random.org and announced on this post by Wednesday, August 24.
- Winners must reside in Canada or the USA. You must be willing to share your mailing address with me to receive the prize
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Good luck!
Edited to add: It pays to be quick! Congratulations to commenter #1, Steve Wynn! Enjoy the movies!! 
I love the idea of camping. Fresh air, change of scenery, the great outdoors, campfires and sleeping under the stars. Unfortunately, I’m a bit of a princess and also love nine hours of sleep. In a bed, not on the ground. And not within arm’s reach of my entire family.
That’s why I really love the idea of a backyard camp out — the less diva-ish members of the family (that is, everybody except me!) can sleep in a tent, but there’s no 500 meter hike to the nasty outdoor loo in the middle of the night, and if it pours the farthest you have to run is across the patio to safety. Also? No bears.
Yesterday was just about the most perfect day imaginable for a camp out. Warm sunny day, cool dry night. We had a camp-ish supper of sausages, salads, and (I swear, I didn’t plan it maliciously!) beans. Then we stoked up the fire pit and had s’mores for dessert. If you don’t have a fire pit in your back yard, you can always do these on the BBQ, too!
The kids couldn’t wait to get their jammies on, and Beloved and I laughed at the steady stream of “mandatory” supplies that migrated into the tent: favourite blankies and pillows and stuffies and comic books and more blankets and more books. One handheld electronic game was intercepted and denied. The kids couldn’t wait to get to bed – should have thought of this years ago!
I listened with half an ear most of the night, expecting to hear the patio door sliding open and little feet seeking softer beds, but they all made it until dawn in the tent. Lucky for me, I was already awake — Willie couldn’t find anyone else to torment at 5 am and had been chasing dust motes across my bed for more than half an hour when the kids tumbled in, boisterous and happy after their night in the tent.
And the best part of backyard camping? You don’t need to re-stoke the fire to have that first, and very necessary, cup of coffee in the morning!
