Summer Jar: the fun has just begun

Jump to Comments

Well, I’d say that just about says it all.  Almost.

Summer is here, and this year I thought we’d start a new tradition, one that I’m sure will need some tweaking and refining as we go, but hopefully be a fun adventure for us all along the way.  A Summer Jar.

During the summer I am all about spontaneity and adventures (mixed in with chores and lots of reading, of course), and often drag my kids around the county (and beyond) with friends and family to explore different places.  Each year my friend Lara and I start to build our list of things we want to do at some point during the summer, but they are long lists and we never make it through them.  Somewhere along the line we talked about having a jar filled with these ideas so that each day you could pluck one and let it take us where it may (or maybe it wasn’t a jar, but a bulletin board at which you threw a dart, but this seems safer with a six year old).

I decided to create such a jar with my kids, hoping we can invite friends along.  Of course they will need to be ready on short notice because the idea (right now) is that we will pick one of these each morning.   There will still be a couple things that we will plan ahead because of logistics (San Jose Tech Museum and some camping are on that list), or timing (like our annual blackberry picking), but otherwise I will relinquish my days to the Jar.   Some of these summer ideas will take all day, some just an hour or less.  Some days we might pick two, and I’m fully prepared for us to pick a swimming day on a cold, cold, rainy day–the question will be will we, or won’t we throw it back into the mix.

At first as we set about writing down our different ideas they tended towards ones that took traveling and money.  Things like pee-wee golf, the zoo, science museum.  After quite a number of these I had to remind my kids that we wouldn’t beable to afford all these things, and we should think closer to home and as free as possible.  That is when the good ideas really started coming.  Picnic and walk.  Bake a cake.  Bike ride.  Camp out in the backyard.  Learn about a country.  Do a play.

And the one we picked our first afternoon?  Write lots of poems.  And so we did.

(that would be me you hear typing late at night to create the promised poetry book….)

3 Comments

Filed under activites with children, holidays, kids

Tags: Summer Activities with Kids, Summertime