• Back yard mural. If you have a few palates and some old wood lying around, turn them into a work of art. Add some posts to the palates and use wood screws to attach plywood to the palates. Have your children create a work of art with their paint brushes. Be sure to protect the mural with a polyurethane spray or paint – you don’t want their hard work to be washed down the drain when it rains. If wood isn’t an option, purchase some canvas and tie it up on your porch posts or on your fence.

• Story time. Raining outside? Make a story circle. Have the family sit in a circle and start a story, like “it was a cold, rainy day and …” then have each family member add to the story. Record the story time effort on your camcorder or on a cassette tape or CD player so you can listen back later. They will get a kick out of listening to it, and you will have a great memory captured for life.

• Become performance artists. Sit down with your kids and write a small performance. Once the performance is written to their standards, decide what costumes and scenes the performance needs. Then, with your help, have your children build the set and make the costumes. Invite family and friends over for the show – supply snacks, beverages and even programs. Your kids love it, and so will the audience!

• Publish an art book. Over the summer’s activities, have your children write short stories, poems and jokes and draw and paint pictures. Collect them in a special place, and at the end of the summer combine them all together to make an art book. They will love to see their work captured, and you can actually say your kids are published artists!

Take these tips and plan a summer that won’t easily be forgotten. Your children will love staying busy and learning new things; and you’ll feel like a kid again too. Relish in this opportunity now, because it will be a blink of an eye and then they will be making their own summer activities lists for their children. What are you waiting for?