Uniquely Yours Craft Journal

Dear Fellow Journalers,

Mary Beth promised me she would send some posts about travelling with children for this month and so here is her  first installment.

~Sallie

Each Spring the children ached to get outside after the snowy winter. Unfortunately, our spring  weekends were rain-filled EVERY weekend! To keep their spirits up and get them motivated for summer I purchased 5 large mason jars and 1large wooden bucket at our local garden shop. Hey, we’re talking “Bucket List” right?

Anyway, one Friday night I had all the kids assemble at our large kitchen island. I then gave each of them a jar, some paper, pencils and scissors. Their instructions were to write out a summer wish list (even if impractical), cut the paper into strips and put them in the jar. I made labels for each of the jars with some different colored cardstock and die-cuts. My husband was in charge of painting the bucket.

The children came up with some great ideas and kept adding them to their jars over the next week. On June 14th, (the last day of the school year) we emptied the jars into the bucket. After a delicious cookout on the deck, we took turns taking 5 ideas out of the bucket. We voted on which ideas we would do and as you can imagine we had a delightful and interesting summer!

Here are some of the things we did on our summer vacation:

• Went to a local farm
• Saw a drive-in movie complete with popcorn and soda
• Went to the county fair and enjoyed the rides (yes, all of us!)
• Participated in the summer Reading Program
• Planted a garden
• Went berry picking
• Had a fun trolley ride
• Made paper boats (in case we had a rainy day) and had a race in the bathtub
• Made Sun prints
• Decorated white tennis shoes with fabric paint
• Made kites which we took to a local beach
• Made lemonade
• Learned how to make home-made ice cream
• Teamed up with some of the neighbors and had a water fight with sponges

That’s all folks – have a wonderful summer!

Mary Beth