Summer of Fun Chart

It’s finally here! SUMMER has arrived!! Well, two days in a row of sunshine, so far - however, as I type this post, the rain is pouring down again! 

The kids are officially out of school, and summer vacation will be in full swing for the weekend, with a family BBQ, and Canada Day celebrations.

Sorry for the horrible lighting - Iphone photo from last year!

Last year I thought it would be fun to put together a list of all the fun things the kids and I (and Daddy, and Nanny, and whoever else we hang with!) get to do with the girls. We created a Summer of Fun chart (photo above) and on each of the sun’s rays we put cheap/free FUN activities to look forward to.
Every day at breakfast we would pick something from the Summer of Fun chart to do that day. Some of the things on the chart are close to home, some are far away. Some things are just to be done with Mommy, others just with Daddy. Most importantly, they are memories in the making that we are making with our girls, and I can’t wait to get started.

Since the space we used for the Summer of Fun chart is now filled with lovely family photos in the kitchen, we are going with a slightly different approach this time around. I took an old picture frame and spray painted the frame with a lovely teal color the girls picked out. I sprayed the background of the frame with another coat of the paint, called Blue Ocean Breeze.

Then came the list! I sat down the missies and we thought about all of the fun things we did last summer and what we wanted to do this summer. The best memories we had were picking berries, feeding the ducks at the local pond and going to the beach. I tried to plan a lot out outside activities, but since the hubs leaves for work at 1pm, activities that would be easy to accomplish at his (slower than Mama) pace.

Once the big long list was all written out, I printed it in a table in Word and made the font different colors. I was going to try to color code the ones for Daddy, Mommy, etc, but I figure I can put stickers on the ones that are parent specific.
This year we are also planning some bigger day trips, where we will be doing activities from the summer of fun chart – on those ones, I’ll pre-date the tags so we know specifically when to pick them off!
After cutting out all of the activities, I used different summery colored pieces of scrapbook paper to put on top of the activities, so they would be partially hidden from prying eyes (but Mommy would still be able to see and steer the girls into certain activities for certain days).

The plan at this point was to affix the activities to the chalkboard backing, but there were WAY too many activities to fit on the backing of the frame.

Plan B! Off to the dollar store for some jumbo craft sticks! I un-glued the activities from the backing of the frame and glued them onto the craft sticks to look like summery little flags of fun.

While at the dollar store, I also picked up a 3 pack of hot pink canvas bags to hold the sticks of fun. 

In order to attach the bags to the frame, I threaded some vintage buttons I had on hand with ribbon, and threaded them through the frame backing.

I tied the ribbon around a craft stick so that the ribbon wouldn't loosen through the backing. This meant I didn`t have to worry about glue holding up the canvas bags so they would hold up a lot longer.

I picked up a box to hold the sticks once they have been selected and completed. I plan to paint it the same color as the frame and add some decorations to the box. That way the frame can be used year after wonderful year! 

The plan this year is that each morning, after breakfast, the girls can pull at least one activity for the day to do with Mommy, Daddy or whomever they are spending the day!