Category: Summer Projects

Rainbow-Style Water Table

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Acting on a suggestion from Parents magazine, today we made Veronika’s water table full of all the colors of the rainbow!

The key to this fun activity was colored foam soap, a product I’d never used before, but which was worth the cost of a few bottles for the fun. To set up, fill your water table with a little water, have buckets of extra water or a filled watering can at the ready, and let the foamy fun begin!

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Needless to say, Veronika was delighted as soon as we squirted out the first batch of foamy soap. “More blue! More red!” she insisted.

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She loved filling up a mini bucket, then scraping off a layer of foam with the shovel and filling the funnels and water slide on her table.

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She could pour water onto the soap to make it dissolve, or swish it around in the compartments of the water table for a sudsy layer.

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And of course then we’d squirt in more to start all over again!

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If you want to take the rainbow factor to the next level, add colored water beads into the mix. I was worried, however, that these would bounce off our patio and pose a threat to wildlife, so we quickly scooped them back out again.

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The other drawback is that the soapy water seeped off the patio and into the grass. So while it was fun for one summer afternoon, you probably don’t want to make this activity an everyday occurrence!

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Construct an Igloo

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What could be more perfect for cooling off in the summer than building blocks made of… ice? Freeze the “blocks” up the night before and your toddler can build their very own igloo the next morning.

To start, I filled plastic cups with water and added a bit of food coloring to each. I squirted the color in randomly (some red, some yellow, and some green) but you could have an even number of each color, a full rainbow, or even just leave the water clear! Freeze overnight.

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Veronika was immediately intrigued when I pulled the frozen cups out in the morning. Run a little bit of warm water around the outside of each cup and the ice blocks will easily slip free. I set them on a tray and it was time to build an igloo!

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We tried stacking them…

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…or just arranging them in a single layer to form a wall of ice.

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Either way, Veronika’s little toys loved to live inside their icy house. She soon had them leaping from icy rooftop to icy rooftop.

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She also loved using two forks as a tool to move the blocks around, which helped keep her fingers from getting too cold.

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If you have enough room in your freezer, consider freezing larger blocks in loaf pans instead. Or mix and match a few loaf pan rectangles with the cylinders from the cups. The only drawback to the game? One way or another the house won’t last forever, since the igloo is going to melt.

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Sprinkler Fun, Six Ways

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Sometimes all you need to occupy those long summer days are an old-fashioned sprinkler and a hose. To wit, we headed outside today and found so many ways to get wet and wild!

First, I used the hose to fill up the baby pool with an ankle-deep layer of water. A toddler slide aimed into it plus a few hula hoops to jump through, and voila, it was an instant teeny water park-slash-obstacle course!

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The kids were hesitant about the splashy finish at first…

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But soon this was like their own mini trip to Disney World’s Splash Mountain!

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Then we set up the sprinkler on the lawn and tested out Freeze Dance. Just crank your kids’ favorite radio station from the car or a speaker, and turn down the volume now and then. Freeze!

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Next up was acting like an animal. Travis hopped through the spray bravely like a frog…

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…and trotted like a horse!

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Veronika was a little hesitant to run right through the spray, so we took it down a notch to try out some toddler-friendly games. She wasn’t brave enough to put her whole body in, but she was brave enough for the Hokey Pokey!

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“You put your left arm in, you put your left arm out…” Simon Says is ideal, too, for coaxing little kids to get wet one body part at a time. We ended with some final big kid fun, taking out our Twister mat but making the game extra slippery and tricky. Left foot on red everyone!

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What’s your family’s favorite way to play with a sprinkler? Please share in the comments!

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Science at the Kiddie Pool

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It was a scorching hot day, so I filled the kiddie pool with a shallow layer of water and assumed Veronika would want to jump right in. When she was a little hesitant, I wondered what would happen if a few objects “jumped” in first.

I brought out a bag of objects and she began tossing them in one at a time. As each landed, we shouted out whether it sank or floated.

“It floats!” she said of a Duplo block.

“It sinks!” she called for a comb, toy car, and nickles. (And of course we made wishes while tossing in the coins).

A few favorite toys were next, all of which could swim i.e. floated. Now she was ready to climb in.

Pretty soon she was loving the way the water cooled off her little feet, and as a bonus, now there were tons of toys to play with in the water!

Between my big kid practicing his math with chalk games and my toddler practicing science at the kiddie pool, it was a day of fun and learning.

Even or Odd Race

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You can help kids keep math skills sharp this summer with this fun chalk game. To start, Travis drew a circle on our patio, and then a line to divide it in half (see how we were sneaking in geometry already?).

We labeled one half of the circle “even” and one “odd”. Next, toss an object into the circle (such as a pebble or shell). Depending which half it lands on, the tosser chooses a number that is odd or even. This was great review for Travis, as well as a chance to practice skip counting.

His first choice was odd (5). Pick a nature object (like sticks, rocks, or leaves) and set off on a race to find the correct number of that item. First person back to the circle wins! Travis ran back with 5 clover flowers in the first round, and 7 blades of grass for our second round.

Keep going and reviewing those evens and odds until your kids tire of the game! Note: For more of a challenge, make a rule that the number has to be between 10 and 20.

Treat Kids to a Car Wash

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You can cross two items off your to-do list on a summer day with this fun activity: Clean off the kids’ ride-on toys and cool off!

The goal is to get out the hose, put some soapy water in a bucket, and well, just get everything wet. To start, Travis was in charge of spraying the hose over all the kids’ vehicles, including a battery-powered car, scooters and bicycles!.

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If your kids are game, a grown-up can hold the hose in an arc and kids can ride right through it… just like the automated car wash!

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Next up was a round of scrubbing and sudsing. The kids eagerly reached into the basin for soapy sponges. Note: I used baby shampoo for the soap, for suds that would be gentle on toddler skin.

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That car was soon sparkly clean.

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So were the scooters and bikes!

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As the final touch, run the hose for a second rinse, bonus points again for anyone who rides right through the water stream.

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Of course you’ll want to end the festivities with a parade. Veronika proudly took off on the scooter…

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… and Travis took the wheel!

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Treasure Hunt

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You can sneak a little summer learning into your next jaunt to the playground with this neat map project!

To start, I tucked a small ball into my purse as we headed off to play, and when we arrived, I told Travis his goal was to hide it some place sneaky while I wasn’t looking. Then he could draw a map so I could find it! Note: You can do this with just about any object other than a ball of course, but I don’t recommend small toys that could easily get lost.

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He quickly took up the challenge, although his map turned out quite differently than I imagined. He stood in one spot, drew arrows for the steps I should take in each direction, and then X marked the spot!

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Following his drawing, I retrieved the ball.

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Now it was Travis’s turn to be the seeker instead of hider. I drew a very different map, with representations of slides, platforms, tunnels, and other playground structures. Sure enough, he quickly followed it to the hidden “treasure”.

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Two friends can also take turns playing this game, or two siblings, simply alternating back and forth. Chances are that kids will want to play until the map paper runs out!

Better Than Water Balloons

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My kids love water balloons but there’s lots about these tiny water bombs not to love; the painstaking process of filling each one; how quickly they pop; and all those plastic bits that pose a hazard to animals, just to name a few.

So this summer we’re making “sponge balloons” instead! Okay so they’re not actually balloons, but these sponge bombs are equally icy cold and wet, making them perfect for summer games.

To start, I snipped kitchen sponges into 8 strips each, then secured in the middle with a rubber band. On vacation, a hair elastic worked in a pinch to cinch the strips together, without access to our craft bin. Veronika loved sorting the finished bundles on top of sponges in corresponding colors before we even took them outside to get wet.

I then set out a bucket of water…

…and it was sponge bombs away!

Travis’s favorite way to play was to see who could get the most sponge bombs into a bucket for target practice.

The bundles are also perfect for an old-fashioned game of Sponge Tag! Thanks to their soft texture and light weight, the sponges are perfect for tossing and tag with even young toddlers.

Water Rhythms

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It was 95 degrees today, which meant time to break out the baby pool and the hose! Since toddlers love to help with “chores”, I first enlisted Veronika to help hold the hose as we filled the pool with a shallow layer of water (about ankle deep).

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Once she climbed in, she didn’t want to stop holding the hose! So we came up with this quick solution: I laid down a few old metal pots and pans (including cake pans and loaf pans) on the sidewalk, and let her take aim.

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Each pan made a slightly different sound, and in turn the sounds would vary depending whether we had the pan upright or upside down.

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She liked to listen to the trickle of water if we had them upright and filled each with a little pool.

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One pan in particular made a great “plink plink” sound, which she returned to again and again with satisfaction.

A little musical play while simultaneously cooling off made this activity a big winner!

Homemade Fizzy Sidewalk Paint

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This fizzy sidewalk paint is a fantastic upgrade over standard chalk on the sidewalk! Thanks to good old baking soda and vinegar, your kids can have some STEM fun watching the bubbly reaction.

To make the paint, I stirred together one (16-ounce) box baking soda, 1/2 cup cornstarch, and 1 cup warm water. Stir until well combined, then divide among plastic cups and add food coloring to each. The colors didn’t come out as rich as I hoped, but we had enough pigment to show up on the pavement, which was all that mattered.

We headed outside on a very hot afternoon, and started making designs. I showed Veronika a few examples of letters and shapes, while she painted something decidedly more abstract. Older kids can make as complicated a picture as they like!

But now for the real fun: once the paint is down, use a squirt bottle filled with white vinegar and spritz over your artwork. Note: An empty mustard bottle with the cap on works perfectly; simply squeeze and dispense a little vinegar at a time.

Every time the vinegar hits the paint, foamy bubbles ensue! This was such fun for Veronika to observe.

As a bonus, this paint washes off like a dream. Simply use a watering can to rinse everything off, and the clean up becomes part of the play.