Motherhood Moments: Summer Activities for Kids

Summer's on our heels and I hope you're doing okay as the school year wraps up! 🫶 Sharing my favorite ideas for summer activities with your toddlers and kids today!

Transcript

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Hi, I'm Kristen, fellow mom, and your biggest cheerleader in all things motherhood and parenting. My husband and I co-founded Parker Baby Co. with one mission in mind to nurture and grow strong families. And that mission continues right here on Rooted Conversations. So grab a cozy drink, take a deep breath, and remember you're not alone in this journey. Hi everyone, welcome back to Rooted Conversations. This week is our monthly motherhood moments episode where it's just me and it's just a shorter episode of just me blobbing. So um thanks for being here. My name is Kirsten Hiebner, and I am the co-founder of Parker Baby Co. and Parker Kids. And uh yeah, so it's May. Mother's Day is in a few days. Um, I don't know, it's the end of the school year. I it's just constant crazy like bus, club, another club. You know, it's just like event after event after event with my kids, and I'm just like running around like a chicken with my head cut off, right? That's the saying. Um yeah, just like track events and school field trips and school dress up days and band concerts and wear the red shirt with the yellow writing, and just I don't know if you all feel that way, but this time of year, just it's a lot. So I hope you guys are doing okay. Um, but with summer coming up, I just wanted to talk to you guys about um things that I did when the kids were little, uh, like to get them outside. Because with it being so nice out in the summer and just all the activities um that you can do just in your backyard, um, so water tables, obviously, and those are so good to get at garage sales. If you can go to garage sales or like Facebook Marketplace or whatever and get like the water tables and um like the playhouses, those are so good to get at garage sales. The other thing that my kids like, have you ever seen the um the fake sinks that like recycle water through my kids put loved playing with that? Anything with water, honestly, is like such a game changer when your kids are little and you can be outside. Um, ice. I would get ice cube trays and like freeze little like dinosaurs or little, like if you have little um like polypocket kind of doll things, um, and you put those in the ice cube trays and then freeze that, and then they can play with the ice cubes, or you can kind of show them how to melt it, so you can give them like um the paint brushes and get water and paint over the um ice cubes with water to make it melt faster to kind of get to the the like prize inside. Um, that one's really fun and takes some time. The other thing is water and um food coloring and paint brushes on the sidewalk or just on paper. Like any art is so good to do in the summer outside because you can be outside and you don't have to have it in the house. Um, the other thing that I loved that my kids did was if you have magnetiles, you can take them to like if you put the garage door down, you can put the magnetiles onto the garage door. They like stick to the garage door and they can like make things on the garage door. That one was really fun, and my kids would do that for a long time. Chalk, and sometimes for chalk, you have to sit down with them for a little bit and kind of get them going and show them how to create something first. So one thing that I I started to do was I would like draw the road. Um, and then they were in charge of drawing like the McDonald's and the Chick-fil-A and our house and our church and the school and the you know, all the their grandparents' house. And um, I always made the road big enough, like down the driveway, down the sidewalk, um, so that they could kind of like their their riding toys or their trikes or whatever, they could kind of um ride on that to go to all these different places, and then they start playing make-believe to go to all these places. Um and that lasts forever. I feel like my kids could do that for a long time, especially if you have those um little trike cars. If you can make your street kind of big enough to fit one of those cars, those my kids, if you do not have one of those little trike cars, those were life-changing for me. My kids played, I think they'd still play with them, honestly. Um, that and wagons, um, and then like jump ropes, because that three combo, you can like tie the wagon with the jump rope to the little tyke thing, and they would like pull things around. So that's always a really good one. Um, there's things for like chalk paint. That one's fun. And then honestly, like washing your car. They don't do a good job, but like it's still fun, and your car kind of gets washed. Um, give them some, or if I want to wash my car, I would wash my car, and then they would have to wash their bikes or their little trike's car. That one's that one was always fun. Yeah, those are the big ones. And then just hopscotch. I remember being like, oh my gosh, you don't know how to jump on one foot. Sometimes I don't know if you guys have hit like realized this yet, but like there's some days when you're like, oh my gosh, I haven't taught you this yet. Maybe that mental weight hasn't hit everybody or doesn't hit everybody like it has me, but just like how, oh, like it is not solely on me to teach you how to literally do everything. And sometimes I am really bad at my job, and I realize that, and it hits me in the face. And one of those times is when I realized I hadn't taught my six-year-old how to jump on one foot or like jump rope, and hopscotch was my way of working on that with them. Pulling weeds, that's kids, they're not all kids, but some kids really enjoy pulling weeds. Yeah, I don't know what else. Trying to think what else I did. Really anything with water. We did the I stopped because I realized how dangerous they were, but those like mushy beads that those beads that grew in the water, they're like small beads, and you put them in water and then it got really big. And then those scared the crap out of me. So I got rid of those, obviously, and I'm really glad I did because now they're like, aren't they really dangerous? Um, but we did a lot of the kinetic sand, and I had those in the garage because I just be forewarned that that scratches wood floors if it gets on your floor. So I only did that outside kinetic sand, and we would like play with that. Um yeah, just park hop picnics, and then the little baby pools, and all these things are really good garage sale Facebook Marketplace things. But baby pools, sprinklers. Do you remember the joy of running through a sprinkler? Like, there's nothing better. So a fun sprinkler, but yeah, I think that's all I've got. Let me know if you come up with anything else. Maybe we should make a maybe I'll post something on our Instagram and people can post what they do with their kids that um and we can all share our ideas so that we don't get bored this summer. Um find a local meetup with other moms if you need to to uh meet at parks and you can grab coffees before, and if you need to go to Chick-fil-A and play inside for a little bit, I did that a lot too. I'd sit with my coffee from Chick-fil-A while my kids played in the playplace. Yeah, just cultivate cultivate places where they can pretend that will that always make them play the longest, you know, like holds their attention the longest. Um, things that will really spark their imagination. Um, that's my three girls though. I I I don't know if it's because Gus is a boy or because he's my fourth, like my youngest, but he didn't, he's not a make believer. Like he does not make believe. He just wanted to play basketball and stuff. So maybe with boys, if you have a lot of boys or only boys or whatever, if you're just like that doesn't make any sense, like we just play basketball all day. I don't know, hockey, street hockey, those are probably good things to have too, like um soccer goals that you can put out in the yard, because those can also be like hockey goals. Um, if you have older kids, like roller blades and skates, those have been awesome. The strider bikes, that's how my kids learned how to ride the bike. You know, the one the bikes without the pedals. Yeah, those are so fun. Yeah, so let me know. I'm gonna put something on Instagram about posting what you guys do to stay busy in the summer outside. But yeah, thanks for being here. I'm so excited for the summer. I cannot wait to have the kids home and just doing all the fun things. Uh, we don't really have anything big plans. I think we have one trip and that's about it. So otherwise, it's just the pool for us. So, anyways, love you guys. We'll see you next time for Rooted Conversations. Thank you so much for tuning in to Rooted Conversations. I hope this episode reminded you that you're growing. You're growing a strong family and you're growing as a parent. One moment, one choice, and one hug at a time. I'll see you next time.