The Ultimate Summer Bucket List

Summer is finally here! Love, love, love it! Can you tell I’m excited? There is something about the flexible schedule of summer that brings me so much joy! With the kids home and out of school, I am looking for fun summer activities. So what do I do? I asked 10 of my favorite bloggers what their must do summer kids activities are. I compiled all our activities together and created The ULTIMATE Summer Bucket List brought to you by the PLAY group.

This list is packed full of kid and Mom approved ideas all about summer FUN for kids. Lots of fun ideas to help to make this the best summer ever:)

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Rainbow Bubble Snakes ~ Bubbles are fun, but a colorful bubble snake is amazing!
Ice Bowling ~ Cool off this summer with this simple DIY bowling game.
Fingerpaint a MIRROR! ~ Explore paint in a whole new way this summer.
Water Balloon Hunt ~ Perfect for a hot summer day. Fun and learning combined.
“Cool” Ice Art for Little Hands ~ Fun art that will keep your kids cool this summer

Painting with Rocks ~ Go for a walk and then create fun art with your kids!
Exploding Art ~ Amaze your kids with this creative and explosive outdoor art.
Painting with Ice ~ Keep the kids cool this summer with this creative melting art.
How to Make a Kite ~ “Lets go fly a kit…” ok so I can sing, but my kids would love this DIY kite!
10 Summer Boredom Busters ~ fun ideas for keeping the “I’m bored” question at bay.

EXPLODING Sidewalk Chalk ~ sidewalk chalk that explodes…sign me up!
Scented Watermelon Sensory Rice ~ add the smell of summer to your next invitation to play.
Marshmallow Sensory Play ~ Marshmallows are yummy when roasted, but check out this fun sensory play!
Camping Activities ~ Lots of great ideas for a “Mom-Run” Backyard Summer camp.
DIY Spin Art Machine ~ Power tools and paint come together to make this fun spin art machine

Recycled Craft Chalkboard Toys ~ Recycle bin items turned toy/chalkboard…yes please!
Build your own Sprinkler ~ No sprinkler…no problem, your kids can make their own!
Backyard Obstacle Course ~ Fun way to burn off a little energy this summer with friends.
Frozen Art Painting ~ Cool art for a hot day.
Watermelon Popsicles ~ Yummy summer treat your kids will love and it is so easy to make!

Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Sandwiches ~ do I even need to say more…YUMMY!
Faux Lava Lamps ~ Amaze your kids with this simple experiment.
Sidewalk SQUIRT Painting ~ Turn your sidewalks in to a beautiful master piece with this fun recipe!
Monster Ice & OCTO-ICE Sensory Play ~ Cool off your kids with this creative Monster ice play!
Kids Window Art ~ Let your kids create a little art on your windows this summer.

Worm Observation Tower ~ What a fun way to learn about wiggly squiggly worms!
Tire Swing Pendulum Painting ~ This outdoor project is a fun combination of science and art.
ICY Cold Freezy Paint ~ Perfect way to paint on a hot summer day!
Rainbow Car Paintings ~ Create simple art with your kids and their cars. How fun!
Glowing Ice ~ glowing play is always and hit, and creating glowing ice is brilliant!

Squirt Bottle Painting ~ Painting is always fun, but with a squirt bottle…yes please!
Turn your Smart Phone into a Microscope ~ Fun way to explore their backyard without all the expensive equipment.
Make a Pinwheel ~ Classic summer craft that your kids will love!
Magnetic ICE Fishing ~ Magnets and ice, how fun is that! Great way to keep cool this summer!
Water Balloon Games for kids ~ Lots of fun games to help beat the heat.

Eruptions with Kool Aid and Paint ~ Create a little summer art and science all rolled into one!
Summer Experiment with Water & Oil ~ 2 opposites that are perfect for playing with this summer!
Make a Homemade Book About Nature ~ Fun backyard learning
How to Chalk Hair ~ Temporary hair color is so fun and your kids will love it!
Dyed Seashell Collage ~ Create a masterpiece after a fun day at the beach.

Sidewalk Chalk Paint ~ We all love chalk but sidewalk paint is fantastic!
Paint with Pom Poms ~ Simple to set up, but oh so fun!
Bubble Pool ~ Beat the heat and add some bubbles too the kiddy pool. Quick, easy and oh so fun!
Scented Watermelon Sensory Rice ~ My kids would love this fun invitation to play!
Bathing Dolls – Water Sensory Play ~ add a fun twist to the traditional car wash and have a baby bath station.

Splatter Painting Like Pollock ~ Backyard painting that your kids will love.
Paper Airplane Experiments ~ Take your airplane building skills to the next level with these fun summer experiments.
Homemade Birdseed Feeders ~ Treat the feathered friends in your back yard to a yummy snack.
Felt Shape Flowers Activity ~ Fun quiet time activity, perfect for a rainy day.
Blow It Up! Exploring Gas with Balloons, Baking Soda & Vinegar ~ Wow your kids with this simple experiment.

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We would love for you to connect with us!

You won’t want to miss out on any of the fun we are having. Stay connected by following the P.L.A.Y. group on Pinterest or come hang out with us on our Google+ Community. We are looking forward to sharing all our creative ideas with you.

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Hope you and your kids have a wonderful Summer exploring and playing! I would love to hear what is on your summer bucket list this summer.

Shrek Apple Snack

I am delighted to have Amy from Creative Kid Snacks guest posting on Housing A Forest today. I absolutely adore her blog, and so do my kids. We spent a good part of an afternoon simply browsing all the yummy snacks and delightful treats that she creates! Each one is more than just a healthy snack but it is a wonderful work of art!

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It’s so great to meet you! I’m Amy, a mom of two little girls, and blogger over at Creative Kid Snacks.Our blog is an online gallery and recipe book of the creative and healthy snacks I’ve made for and with my kids. One of my desires as a mom has always been to teach my girls to love eating healthy food, and I have discovered that presenting healthy, wholesome food in a creative way ignites a joy in eating it that would otherwise not be there.

Lunch and snack time has become a time to learn about new things through snacks and stories, a time to express our own creativity as we create food art, and a time of bonding for me and my kids. Moms, we already carry out the tasks of preparing snacks and lunches for our kids every day, so why not do so with intentionality? Making snacks creatively doesn’t have to take long either, just take a look at our site for ideas on what to make!

Some of the categories of snacks you might want to check out are our Biblical snacks, Educational Snacks, Storybook inspired Snacks, Super Healthy Snacks that pack a nutritional punch, and our Holiday Snacks – just for starters!

Today, I’d like to share a movie inspired snack . . . . meet Shrek!

Ingredients:

1 green apple

1 slice white cheese (mozerella, swiss, or provolone)

1 blackberry

1 whole cashew (halved)

peanut butter (1/8 teaspoon)

How to make Shrek:

Slice a nice round section from a green apple (almost a half, just without the seeds). Lay flat on a plate. Slice another round section off of the remaining apple. Take a sharp knife and carefully carve the two ears from that section (shape is shown above) and place on the plate. Cut a small nose out as well and lay onto Shrek’s face. Next, cut two ovals out of the sliced white cheese and lay them above the nose for the whites of Shrek’s eyes. Next, remove two small round bits from a blackberry (these were the perfect size and shape for Shrek’s eyes, but you could also pipe a bit of blackberry jam onto the cheese as eyes if you’d like – see my suggested technique in this post). Slice a smile out of the remaining slice of cheese and lay onto the apple. Finally, attach your two cashew eyebrows to Shrek’s face by placing a tiny bit of peanut butter (use a butter knife) onto the back of each one and pressing them in place. Note: I used honey in the Shrek pictured here, but I decided to recommend peanut butter as it would stick even better for ya!

Another version of Shrek I tried looked like this:

His open mouth is cute too. Make it whichever way strikes your fancy!

Other Movie Characters Made Healthy:

Click on the photo to be taken to snack directions.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Finding Nemo

Winnie the Pooh

Grinch Party Poppers

Tangled

Hello Kitty

Lion King

Mike Wazowski

Thanks again, Tammy, for having me on the blog today! I hope you’ll stop by and pay us a visit at Creative Kid Snacks and make sure you say hello on Facebook! Keep up with all of our new snacks there!

Have a yummy day!

Amy

Creative Kid Snacks | Facebook | Pinterest

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Thanks so much for posting with us Amy! Your yummy Shrek apple snack got 2 thumbs up from my kiddos. They asked if I could surprise them with it tomorrow. Ha! That sounds more like a planned snack than a surprise, but either way I love it! For more wholesome snacks make sure to visit Amy at Creative Kid Snacks, and let her know you saw her post on Housing A Forest. Comments are a treat, and I am sure that Amy would love to hear from you.

Here are a few of my kids favorite posts from Creative Kids Snacks to get you started (I had to let my kids choose, because I wanted to link them all):

Painting with Candy

I am so enjoying the Paint and Play series that I am doing with Crystal from Growing A Jeweled Rose. The focus for our series is all about the process, having fun and getting kids excited to create art! This week we challenged each other to find 3 fun ways to Paint with Candy. This is one challenge that I couldn’t wait to do! Growing A Jeweled Rose created art with Pop Rocks, Pixy Stix and Gumballs, while we pulled out our left over Halloween Candy and used Nerds, Laffy Taffy and Pull n Peel Licorice!

Who can resist a good Candy Challenge? Not my kids! When I told them what we were going to be using to paint with, they squealed with excitement! We still have a huge stash of Halloween candy lurking in the back of our cupboard so this was perfect. I know, Halloween was months ago! Somehow, my kids loose interest in actually eating it after the first few weeks. Bizarre right? Anyway, there it sits in our cupboard just waiting to become paint:) Nothing like a stash of Nerds, Laffy Taffy and pull n peel Twizzlers to get the creative juices flowing:) Read on to see what we came up with.

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Nerds Candy Paint

We had a bunch of mini boxes of Nerds in the back of our cupboard. I have been meaning to make them into paint for a while. I know that sounds a little weird, but trust me it was on my to-do list. My kids don’t eat much candy, so we are always looking for fun and creative ideas to use up our stash.

To make our paint, we simply poured one mini box of Nerds into each glass. I love that they come presorted by color, making this step so easy! We then just covered them with water. The more water you use, the lighter your paint will be. The kids were the ones adding the water, so we were not too exact. No need to be fussy, it all worked great!

The Nerds will loose there outer coloring as the water dissolves it, and that will create your paint. The kids were surprised to see that the Nerds were white in the middle and not colored all the way though. We used our paint right away, so the white Nerds were still in the bottom of our paint. However, if you leave them sit long enough, the whole Nerd will eventually dissolve.

The kids loved this simple painting exercise. We used the paint just like watercolors, and it worked great!

The kids begged to taste their paint. Ha! According to them this was the best tasting paint that they have used.

Melted Laffy Taffy Art

Next we moved onto making melted Laffy Taffy Art. My kids were so excited to give this a go.

I used an knife to cut off part of the wrapper of our Laffy Taffy so that the kids fingers would not be totally sticky during the process. Not a necessary step, but it worked well for us. Then I warmed our baking stones in the oven, wrapped the stone in tin foil and set our paper right on top. The same as we did for making Melted Crayon Art.

As you press the Laffy Taffy to the hot paper, it will melt leaving behind a trail of color. Make sure to cautious when doing this with your kids. The stone is hot and little fingers could get burned easily.

The sound and smell was wonderful. The Taffy made little popping noises as the kids painted. You can see a few of the bubbles on the paper where the kids got the taffy a little thicker.

As the kids Laffy Taffy art dried, it continued to pop and crack. This was an added bonus to drawing with Laffy Taffy that we did not expect. The finished project was shinny, and still smelled yummy.

Pull n Peel Twizzlers Stamps

For our last candy painting exercise, we created stamps with Pull n Peel Licorice. What a fun and unique way to create a stamp. (Credit for this creative idea needs to go to my hubby)

The kids pulled their licorice apart into little strands and then set to work creating their designs. We used clear plastic stamp bases, and the licorice stuck right pretty easily. The kids did apply pressure when they were creating the stamp, but I was surprised at how well the licorice stayed on. No glue or anything else needed.

We used our Homemade Stamp Pad with our little licorice stamps and it worked great!

This was our favorite stamp that the kids created. It was simple and beautiful! I actually wish that the licorice was not such a temporary medium. Oh well, we made lots of fun prints while we could:)

I found a few smaller acrylic stamp blocks as well. It was fun seeing each of the prints the kids created.

I love how easy this project was to clean-up. We just scraped everything into the garbage and gave the acrylic bases a quick wash with water. Love that!

After this fun challenge, I am sure that I will never look at candy again the same! The kids will have to guard their treats from me, or I will steal them for another creative project.

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I love what Growing A Jeweled Rose created this week! Crystal is my go to girl for creative and messy ideas. Check out all the amazing fun they had, I especially can’t wait to see what they did with Pop Rocks! My kids had so much fun creating our candy art, that I know they will want to try Crystals fun techniques too. We have more than enough Halloween candy left over to keep on painting:)

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Make sure you stop back in next week for more Play and Paint!

Don’t miss out on any of our Paint and Play series:

Balloon Painting 5 Ways and Super Creative Balloon Painting

Homemade Spin Art Machine and A Spin on Spin Art

Tire Swing Pendulum Painting and Glowing Pendulum Painting

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Check out this amazing list of 35+ Candy Experiments, Learning Activities, Crafts, Recipes and More from Mom to 2 posh Lil Divas! More fun and exciting things you can do with candy!

If you love process art like us, then check out my Painting Without Brushes Pinterest board. It is packed full of fun ideas.

Backyard Summer Learning

School is finally out! I am so excited to have my kiddos home. Here are a few ideas linked up from last weeks Kids Co-op all about Backyard Summer Learning.

Ice and Water Play ~ over 75 ways to beat the heat this summer
Finding something new to paint ~ no paper needed!
Penguin Small World Play ~ Fun way to learn with your water table this summer.
Tire Swing Pendulum Painting ~ Your kids will love this fun painting “twist”
Outdoor Water Play is Learning Time ~ Lots of fun learning with water!
Pool Noodle Abacus ~ Another great use for pool noodles!
Viewable Planter ~ Watch roots grow all summer long!
10 Ways to Learn with Sidewalk Chalk ~ lots of great ideas for learning outdoors.

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If you were featured this week, feel free to grab a Housing A Forest button.

Come back every Thursday to see if your creative ideas were featured and link up any new ideas! (I will be using one image and a link back to your blog.)

There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly

Early Learning Game ~ There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly

I’ve never swallowed a fly, and I can’t even begin to imagine swallowing a spider! That just makes me shiver thinking about it! I have a hard enough time removing a spider from my house let alone eating one. Maybe that is why the book There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly holds such appeal to kids. There is always lots of giggles as we read it. It was also one of my childhood favorites and I am so excited to be able to bring it to life with this fun activity. Simple activities are the best and this one is no exception.

There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly!

This post contains affiliate links for your convenience.

Materials needed:

The book There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly ~ you can pick up a copy at your local library if you don’t have one, or borrow from a friend like I did:)
Empty, clean and label removed syrup bottle ~ our Mrs. Butter-worth’s Syrup comes in a bottle that is shaped like a lady and perfect for this activity!
Pipe-cleaners
Alphabet beads ~ We were given a package of Alphabet beads from Craft Project ideas, and love them. (You can follow Craft Project Ideas on Facebook for more great ideas.)

To set up this learning station:

Set out the book
Precut the pipe-cleaners into about 4″ sections.
Clean, dry and remove the label from the bottle
Set out the alphabet beads ~ I chose to just leave them on the table, but a shallow tray would contain all the beads and keep them from spilling to the floor.

Have your child find the animals in the book that the old lady swallowed. Then have them thread the matching letters onto the pip-cleaners, to spell the animals names. To secure the alphabet letters on the pipe-cleaners, simple bend each of the pipe-cleaner ends back on itself.

You can also use these simple word animals as a fun sequencing activity.

Once you have the pipe-cleaner animals all assembled, read the book. As the lady swallows one of the animals in the book; have the child drop the corresponding pipe-cleaner animal into the bottle.

A great way to extend this activity:

There are so many fun versions of this classic book that would work great with this activity. “There was an old lady who swallowed a pie” or “There was an old lady who swallowed a shell” and so many more! Read a new book and then create more pipe-cleaner words.

You could also create your own funny version of this book. My kids would get a kick out of that! “There was an old lady who swallowed a __________” and let the kids think up silly things to ad to the list.

This fun activity is great for spelling, word recognition, early readers, sequencing and working on fine motor skills. Lots of learning fun all in one activity!

I was surprised at how easy the pipe-cleaner animals were to dump out of the bottles.

I would love for you to share what you have been learning with books. Feel free to leave a link in the comments so we can find what you have been up too!

Disclaimer: Not too long ago we received a delightful package from CraftProjectIdeas.com. It was packed full of craft supplies. One of the things we received was a ginormous package of Alphabet beads from Craft Project ideas.