Celebrate the Start of Summer with a Summer Fun Basket
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We’re on the home stretch with this homeschool year. {insert every emoji with confetti or balloons} For us, it’s been a long, weird year. Moving, looking for a home, and then moving into that home all in one school year is not as productive as it sounds for a school year.
We’ve gotten behind on a lot of things, so we’re going a few weeks longer in our school year than we normally do. (Yes, my kids are super excited about this, as you can imagine.) But we do know that summer is coming!
I’ve spent the last few weeks planning what we’ll be doing this summer, what fun things we want to add to our Summer Fun List, and what books we want to read together just for fun. I’ve also been jotting down ideas onto a list for one of my kids’ favorite school traditions: Our Summer Fun Basket.
Kids are so awesome for many reasons, but one thing I love about them, in particular, is their amazement in the ordinary, everyday things. Let’s go to the dentist and get our teeth cleaned – we’ll get a new toothbrush to take home! Cheers all around. Let’s go to Target and get some milk. I’ll let you throw some pennies down that spinning thing to raise money! Enthusiastic cartwheels for all.
Insert mom brilliance: buy all the stuff you inevitably need for summer – sunscreen, new bathing suits, bug spray, new sprinkler – and put it in a basket. Heck, you might just want to go crazy and tie a big balloon to it. Mark my words, your kids will die (of excitement).
We started this a few years ago, and it has been so fun. Really, even I’m catching the excitement and making lists way ahead of time of what to put in our Summer Fun Basket. Most items cost very little, and all are stuff you have to buy anyway. Some are even free – like book lists for each kid with coupons for prizes when they finish.
20 Items to Include in a Summer Fun Basket
1. New swimsuits (Or pull the old ones that aren’t totally stretched out and ruined out of storage!)
2. Flip flops (You know all last year’s are broken.)
3. Sunscreen
4. Bug spray
5. Slip ’n Slide (You will be the coolest for at least 15 minutes.)
6. Booklists
7. New books
8. “Movie tickets” for a summer movie that’s coming out (I print out pictures and make my own “tickets” with a note telling the kids we’ll take them.)
9. Bubbles
10. Sidewalk chalk
11. Sunglasses
12. Sand toys
13. Lemonade mix
14. Otter Pops
15. Water guns
16. Bug net
17. Pool toys
18. Small garden tools
19. Badminton net
20. New bike helmet
Trust me; you will be the hero of that day when your kids walk down the stairs on the last day of school to be greeted by a big basket of summer goodies! It’ll be like Christmas in summer. Hang in there, mamas! Only a few weeks left. Summer’s coming for us too!
What suggestions would you add for items to include in a Summer Fun Basket?
What a great idea. I’ve been fishing around for something different this year. That sounds like fun.
Blessings, Dawn
We love silly string from the dollar store; we just can’t get enough of it in the summer. Try adding shaving cream the really foamy plain kind– put shaving cream all over and THEN use the slip and slide… it’s a whole new experience! I think I’d probably add water balloons too but I have three boys and they love to pretend they’re bombs. I just love this idea!
I am absolutely convinced that this would work brilliantly. Seeing everything together in a basket would be exciting and fun for kids! Excellent idea!