Whether families have big vacation plans or are planning to stay at home this summer, PBSParents.org has great suggestions to keep family vacations, or “stay-cations”, exciting! From activities like car games to backyard camping, children and their parents will never be bored!
My friends at PBS shared the following tips with me for ensuring that your kids have a fun, safe and active hot-weather season…no matter what your budget is. Whether you’re driving to grandma’s house, or just planning an awesome “stay-cation”, keep your kids happy with a few of these summer fun suggestions!
- Have a sing-a-long! Sing your favorite tunes from Sesame Street along with other songs…
- Take turns playing games with your child. Find something inside or outside the car and have your children guess what you see by giving hints. Explore the world like Sid the Science Kid!
- Invite your child to be an “alphabet detective” by finding all the letters around them. Players might find an “a” in a road sign and a “b” on a license plate and more – take a page from the Super WHY gang and have fun with the alphabet.
- Use “car time” to talk to your child about everyday activities and events, whether it’s how leaves change color in the fall or what makes a great friend. Maya and Miguel know that happiness is the greatest when it’s shared!
- For preschoolers, slip on your sneakers, pack water bottles and hit the trail! Make the adventure even more fun with a kid-friendly scavenger hunt in search of things you might find along the way.
- For school-age kids, set up a tent in your own backyard, roll out the sleeping bags and melt marshmallows in the microwave to make s’mores. No need to send kids to sleep away camp to get a taste of the great outdoors.
- For everyone, make some popcorn, snuggle up and tune in together to PBS KIDS and PBS KIDS GO! 😉
Play is an important part of kids’ physical, social, intellectual, and emotional development. Playgrounds provide your child with FREE fun, fresh air and exercise, but they can also pose some safety hazards. For children who enjoy spending hours at the playground, teach them how to act responsibly with some important safety guidelines:
- Never push or roughhouse while at the playground.
- Use swing sets, slides, and all other areas of the playground properly.
- Always BE CAREFUL when jumping off of equipment.
- Leave personal belongings away from the equipment, so no one gets hurt.
- Don’t use playground equipment if it is wet or has heated up from the summer sun.
- Don’t wear clothes with drawstrings or other strings at the playground.
- Wear SUNSCREEN when playing outside – even on cloudy days.
Visit www.pbsparents.org for lots more tips, useful ideas and information to keep you and your children busy all summer long!
Whether its a vacation or stay-cation that you’ve got planned for the summer, I’ve got to tell you all about a great deal that I found recently, that has helped put my son have a great stay-cation! I recently bought my 12 year old son a call phone from Target, so that I can stay in touch with him while he’s off having play dates with friends etc… It was only $29 and costs $7 a month for the minimal contract needed to keep in contact with quick calls, texts etc.. Its a Motorola W376 from Tracfone.com and its got a camera and other cool features, so my son loves it. He even sent me a photo of the tigers at the zoo he was visiting with a family friend last week. Its been a huge hit! We can keep in contact, he thinks its cool and it doesn’t burn a hole in our pockets. It’s turned the stay-cation into a real adventure!