I LOVE using summer time around here to work on fun projects that we just don’t seem to have as much time for during the school year. AND…I think summer time is a great time to focus hard on godly character training with the kids. (Yes…by summer’s end…I plan to rid my children’s hearts completely of all selfishness and pride and lazyness and…*ahem*…well…we’ll be working on it anyway…) :)
Seriously, there are all kinds of fun things to do with the kids during the summer time…and my kids are rarely bored. (If nothing else…we have a pretty big garden with endless weeds. And dirty toilets. And dirty dishes.)
My boys LOVE the summer library reading program in our town…therefore they are inspired to read like crazy all summer long!
Matt is great at assigning the boys outdoor projects…and they love doing these jobs with and for their dad! It is amazing how much help they can be with yard work, hauling stuff, cleaning up wood and sticks, etc. I LOVE watching them work with their daddy!
Inside the house, the boys and I have fun making up new recipes and cooking together. And we play tons of games of Skip-bo. And War. And Old Maid. And Crazy Eights. And we make up our own card games.
As the summer progresses…and we work on fun projects and activities together…I’ll be sure to share the ideas with you! Here’s one idea to start off the summer:
This week one of our kitchen projects was making cool shaped pancakes. Using this whole wheat pancake recipe with a couple of extra tablespoons of milk stirred into the batter…we filled a ketchup-like container with pancake batter and started getting creative with pancake shapes and letters.
This little tool didn’t make it quite as easy as I was hoping it would when I first read the idea…but it was really fun to experiment and play with! (And of course the pancakes tasted good no matter what they ended up looking like!)
Here, Justus is working on a “J” for Justus.
Here’s Asa’s name (And by the way…in case any of the rest of you are wondering ~I’ve been emailed with this question~ Asa’s name is pronounced: “ACE-uh”.)
We were pretty happy with the way this bear and bunny turned out.
We decided the bunny reminded us of Buster on Arthur!
I LOVE this extra “down time” with my kids! I’ll look forward to sharing more ideas with you during the next several weeks! Here’s to a wonderful fun summer with our kids!
Find more great ideas at Rocks in My Dryer!
[tags] kids in the kitchen, summer projects with kids, summer activities[/tags]
AWESOME tips! 3 in 1, I will be looking forward to hearing what else you come up with! Thanks for sharing them!
Okay seriously I want to come live at your house :)
Very clever. Love the ketchup container idea.
Love the pancakes!!! Too cute!
You could try cutting off part of the spout of the container you used to let more batter through. OR, you could do what I do and use a small pitcher to pour the batter. *SO* much easier than anything else I’ve ever tried (and I once made several hundred pancakes in one day).
I LOVE the pancake idea! I always struggle to create even the simple Mickey Mouse pancakes. This is waaayyy better since the kids can create their own pancake art.
I’m writing this one down, thanks!!!
Oh this is a GREAT idea! Thank you for sharing!
We do this too usually with green or pink batter. I haven’t tried using a squeeze bottle but now I will have to! My Mom bought the skillet shapes but those aren’t nearly as much fun as D.I.Y.
I love the pancake idea with the ketchup bottle! thanks for that my kids will love it!
I love the ketchup-bottle idea to make the pancakes. My kids will have so much fun with that! Thanks. :)
Great idea Laura!
We’ll be trying this. I’ve tried just pouring shapes, and it hasn’t worked too well!
FANTASTIC pancake idea! My kids are always asking me to give them their inital and they don’t always turn out correctly… esp. “E”, lol!
That’s really neat! I’ll have to keep that in mind.
My freshman year of college my literature teacher assigned us to read a book called “Asa, As I Knew Him” and I’ve been in love with the name ever since.
:)
Awesome!! LOVE this idea… my only problem is going to be in the flipping. I am the world’s worst pancake flipper…
love those classic ideas!
oh my..how long has it been since i’ve played old maid???
:)
Sounds like a fun time! I loved summers as a kid! No worries! I’m definitely gonna try the pancake thing!
Laura, it sounds like it’s going to be a wonderful summer at your house!
The ketchup-bottle idea is great. I sometimes will put cookie cutters on my griddle and fill them with batter, but this would give us so much more variety.
Sorry, I just had to ask …… why are there dirty toilets and dirty dishes in your garden? ;0)
Those pancake initials turned out really well.
This is a great hack! (glad you got a link on ParentHacks again)