Some great idea's

I found some great idea's for the summer time boredom on my friends site.

The secret life of Joy

Here are a few to add:

I put white flour in a 2inc. deep foil baking pan and then let the kids drive their 'hot wheels' in the snow. Especially great when you have a snow plow. I would suggest doing it some place easy to sweep up.

I like to have the big boys teach one of the little ones how to do a chore. (They tend to not even notice they are doing the chore while they teach)

Together time. Pair up one child with another, they have to play in a designated place for about 20-30min. Rotate the children so each child gets alone time with each other kid. If you have a behavior issue they both get moved to a chair for the remaining time.

Entertaining but instructional videos. Leap frog, drive through history, national geographic.

How to books; (first steps series drawing and painting animals, a step-by-step drawing book D is for Doodle by Deborah Zemke, The American Boy's handy book, The American Girls handy book, Back to Basics.)

How it works books (The new way things work by David Macaulay)

Picture chore charts. This is our newest adventure. I printed off pre-screened pictures off the Internet of chore like things (A child sweeping, a tooth brush, a cartoon trash can, an elephant using a 'big' toilet), a lot of the pictures were funny. Then the boys cut out the picture they wanted and pasted it to a small poster board and made a list of things to do. Get ready for bed(brush teeth, comb hair, use restroom, get P.J.'s on). Clean Bathroom (clean toilet, wipe sink, wash mirror, take out trash, sweep floor). It was a lot of fun.

Ok, got to go...

~H