During the summer you seem to see a lot of bored kids around. I found a few things online that was pretty awesome so I wanted to share what I found to help ease off that boredom and the whining that quickly follows.
Kids can bowl for free! That's right FREE. The only thing you pay for is shoe rental and that would vary by whatever location you sign up for. In our area it was $5 a kid, so it would be more cost effective for me to buy them a pair of bowling shoes off of ebay than pay $5 per kid each time we take them bowling FOR FREE. You get 2 free games per day and they come in the form of a coupon through email. I signed up for 3 of the 4 kids. We haven't been yet but we got the coupons tacked to our Summer Board.
As a bonus you can also add a "Family Pack" that allows for up to 4 adults (and older children) to bowl those two games for free as well. It was only $30 which pays for itself!
Kids can skate for free! That's right FREE! (See a trend here?) These also come in the form of a printable coupon and it looks like you two free skate coupons per week. Also these are printed out already and on our Summer Board.
Kids can take Microsoft Summer Day Camps for FREE! This is an awesome offer. You can sign your kid up to take free Microsoft classes, some can last up to 4 days (a few hours each day). And there are a few that are only 1 day. I find the class topics fascinating as they are teaching kids how code games like Mindcraft. These are completely free of course, however it appears in our area it's a very popular setup and we were waitlisted. Hopefully, you can get your child signed up!
Kids can take a Apple Camp class for FREE! This is another awesome offer from a great company. Here is the blurb from their website:
Apple Camp is designed to help spark the imagination of kids ages 8 to 12. They’ll learn to make movies by storyboarding ideas, shooting video, and creating an original soundtrack. Or campers can create interactive books complete with their own illustrations and sound effects. At Apple Camp, kids and their creativity are the focus.
It sounds like a blast and it's completely free! This is great for keeping kids engaged and using their imaginations as they get older. It appears they haven't released signup for this yet but we are hoping to get an email soon so we can sign up Eli.
Kids can send a letter to Mickey or the Disney Princesses and receive a signed post card back from
the characters. This more for the younger kids. I was hoping you could do different characters but it looks like for all the responses I've seen posted online it's either Mickey and Gang or Cinderella and gang. We have two letters going out this week so I will post a photo with what does come back.
You would want to mail the letter to:
Walt Disney World Communications
PO Box 10040
Lake Buena Vista, FL 32830 – 0040
PO Box 10040
Lake Buena Vista, FL 32830 – 0040
Next up we have printables! I've found so many printable activity sheets and coloring sheets online it's ridiculous. At the bottom of this post I will link a few.
And last but not least...we are introducing emailing to Eli (he's 10). We have emailed his favorite sports teams to see if they can send a fan pack. He's sent out a total of 40 emails so far a few responses on the same day from some teams saying weather they will or will not send out anything. He's so excited to start checking the mail. With Alexis only being 6 I've yet to find something for her in this vein that would be interesting so if you have any ideas let me know!
So far the teams that responded back (we've been doing this for three days) positively are: Los Angels Dodgers, the Los Angeles Clippers, Minnesota Timberwolves, and the Milwaukee Brewers. We created a spreadsheet so he can keep track of what teams he's emailed as well as their responses. This will help him with his spreadsheet skills so it's a learning activity as well.
We did get a really cool response back from the New York Jets asking him to write a letter through snail mail (Yay another learning experience!) to his favorite player to receive an autograph.
Here is the address we were given:
Player Name
1 Jets Dr.
Florham Park NJ 07932
So we are going to be doing that and I will post the response.
So do you know of something for the kids this summer that should be added? Let me know!
Here are some great printable sites:
Education Worksheets You only have a few pages you can print out per month unless you sign up and pay the yearly fee.
Crayola Coloring Sheets They also have some awesome printables for different topics such as Science and Social Studies.
Hasbro Printables Hasbro has My Little Pony, Baby Alive, and more!
