Shopping With Kids? Yes You Can!

I love to shop. I especially love antique stores that are packed to the gills with treasures and curiosities. I also have three smallish children. You can see where this would pose a problem. Yesterday we took the boys to a bunch of the neat stores over in Ventura and I had a fantastic idea: I made them each a checklist of things to find. This time I made it just five easy things - a doll, antique utensils, old books, old signs and costume jewelry. I also had them work as a team against Brooks and Kell (who had the actual list of things I was looking for). They had a great time and it totally kept them from being bored. When they had checked off everything on their lists, I had lollipops ready. But they were SO good that when they spotted a cupcake shop, I agreed to the upgrade :)

Alphabet Summer

I was really hoping to find some way to keep the kids learning this summer without resorting to simple workbooks. And when I read about Alphabet Summer, I knew I had found it! The idea is that you choose a letter a day (or every few days in our case) and plan on some learning activities that complement the letter. I made my boys each a notebook with a basic plan for each day as well as some worksheets to go along with each theme. We're skipping around as we go and working the letters in where they fit with our schedule.
Here's Dash's notebook and the first page...
So far it's going wonderfully! Finley especially enjoys finding new words that go along with each letter so that our days are full :) Here are some pictures from W and R days. And here are some links to other families that have inspired this terrific idea:

Home By Heidi
The Moes Family

What are your kids up to this summer?