Staying Sane This Summer, Part 1: The “I’m Bored” Bucket

Summer is here!  The Littlest Apple’s last day of preschool was last Friday.

This is my first summer as a mother of TWO children and since I’m still learning how to juggle the needs of 2 kids, I thought it best to have a game plan for the summer.  I’m going to spend several blog posts talking about my plan for Staying Sane This Summer.

Up first, the “I’m Bored” Bucket.  The Little Apple has an amazing imagination, and he spends lots of time pretending.  But there are also plenty of times (particularly those times when I’m paying attention to Slingshot) when he whines and complains about being bored.

Enter the “I’m Bored” Bucket.

I’ve seen variations of this project on several blogs, including Shaydes of Light and Teach Mama.  Now when The Littlest Apple complains about being bored, he has to draw a stick from the bucket and do the activity written on the stick.  No ifs, ands, or buts.  Some of them might be fun, like “play in your sandbox” and some might be chores, like “dust.”  I tried to pick things that he wouldn’t need much help with, but there are a few that might need some assistance from Mommy.  My hope is that this will put an end to the whining and complaining about being bored all summer long.

This was very much a “use what you’ve got project”.  I had all of the supplies on hand.  I wrote out a whole bunch of things for The Little Apple to do on wide popsicle sticks and stuck them in a bucket.  I decorated the bucket with cardstock, chipboard letters, and leftover ribbon scraps.

Here are the activities in our “I’m Bored” Bucket:

• Sort through old clothes
• Pull weeds in garden
• Clean out toy cabinet downstairs
• Straighten toy shelf in playroom
• Dust
• Start a load of laundry
• Play 1 2 3 Flip (what we call the Cars and Trucks Card Game)
• Play Leap Pad for 10 Minutes
• Handwriting Practice-4 times
• Coloring practice
• Cutting practice
• Lava Floor-don’t touch the floor!!
• Sandbox
• Pick up 5 toys and put them away
• Hole punch paper
• Call grandparents
• Build with blocks
• Sing a song
• Read a book to Slingshot
• Play with playdough
• Count to 100
• Read 2 books
• Sweep the floor
• Go up and down the stairs 5 times
• Line up your cars and trucks
• Stack cups
• Make a video on your LeapPad
• Chalkboard
• Printables
• Catch a bug
• Tape art book

Next up, I’ll share our Weekly Summer Routines and the importance of staying flexible.   

How do YOU combat summer boredom?