Adventures with Toddlers: End-of-Summer Bucket List for Little Explorers!"**

Okay. So let's get our calendars out in for those of you. Who use an electronic electronic calendar that's you can use those as well. I find that I'm writing down when I'm doing a big planning session. I find writing things as much better and then transferring to my electronic calendar. But you do what works best for you. Okay. So here are the growing parents, six things you must do in the last six weeks of summer. If you haven't already done them. And if you have good for you.

Okay, so you're going to Google local parks. If you're close to a bunch of parks, I recommend you go to one a week. Take a, your first aid kit, take your lunch, a sack lunch. So you're not spending unnecessary money. Some days. Trip through McDonald's is the best you can do. And that's fine too. So simple peanut butter and jelly, some cheese sticks, some pretzels, a few veggies in there, and you're good. So take all that and head off to your local park. Let your kiddos climb.

I know it's scary when you're not quite two year old is wanting to climb big kid equipment, but get right up there on that equipment with them. Give them some space to explore and test out their body and strengthen their muscles and be close by if it's too big of a fall for them to. Keep that exit safe by that slide. And let them explore. Climbing stomping running, jumping, sliding. All of those activities, strengthen the muscles in the shoulders. Arms elbows fingers hands.

Those areas have to be strong before they can hold a pencil correctly. Their core has to be strong before they can hold their body in a chair. And that starts at a very early age, working on developing those skills. As soon as we're able to walk around. Let them explore those playgrounds of course, was supervision and safety, but don't be afraid to let them explore. You're also going to back off a little bit when your kiddo is closer to age three. Around three, four and five.

You're going to give him some space so they can explore and begin now. Negotiating and making friends and learning about friendship, learning about playing with others. You're going to want to supervise them. On the slide. Some parents let their kids go up and some only want them to go down. That's something you have to figure out. Climbing up slides is a great social motor. I'm sorry. Great. Gross motor skill.

However, it can create social, emotional problems with other children and other parents. So decide what's best for you and your kiddo and the other kiddos around you. Maybe it's best to use the slide to go down on our bottom. And find other ways to climb up things. So their spend about it, you can spend about an hour or so, or as long as your kiddos will tolerate. Playing in the park, have some lunch and head home for a nice rest and quiet time.

Or, oh, if your kiddo is still napping, that's even better. Okay, the next thing on your list is visit the zoo. If you're not close to a local zoo. If you can do a little weekend getaway. That's great. I know we have a zoo and my part of the country it's about an hour away. So it's more of a day trip or a very short day trip. And sometimes we have to drive two to three hours, four hours sometimes to get to a zoo, but I do recommend that you get to a zoo. Every summer.

And as you're touring the zoo, you're talking to your kiddo the whole time about, oh, this is a Panda. This is a polar bear. Polar bears live where it's cold. You're helping them develop language. And your older kiddos are developing background knowledge about. Are. Atmosphere about our world. And those are important. That's those are important pieces of information. To acquire before they start school. So that's super fun. They're going to be tired. They're going to be hot.

They're going to be thirsty. Be sure that you bring drinks and snacks and all those good things and wear comfortable shoes and that your kiddo is wearing comfortable shoes. Okay. The next place we're going to visit is a pool or a spray ground. Oh my goodness. You know, those are all going to close on labor day and that is the saddest day of the year for me, because I just love a swimming pool. Spray grounds are so great because you can give your littles. A lot more freedom.

You don't have to have a life jacket they can experiment with on and off and positional words like up and down. You can take a little plastic cup with you and put it on top of a spicket. And when this Becket turns on, it shoots up in the air and you can say up, and then when it turns off and the cup falls to the ground. You say down. So again, that's a positional word. Up down.

Very important for language development and for skills later on in school, but you start developing those language skills. Early on in life, 18 months, two years old. Very important. They can also experience cold hot. So when they're in the spray ground and the water is cold, they're cold. And when it turns off. We can talk about the sun is going to dry us out and we're going to get hot again. And just having those conversations with even your two year two year olds important for vocabulary.

The next place we're going to go is we are going to visit the local library and check out books. Ideally, you'd be going to the library you're around. I know most, most public libraries. I participate in some sort of summer reading program. It's something like 95%. Of public libraries offer this. Many offer incentives and gifts, and you can earn books and different. Different tokens, basically. For being read to. So yes, your newborn baby usually qualifies for the summer reading program.

It feels a little awkward. You can go in and check out 10 little board books and you read those books to your baby. You keep track of them. You take them back to the library. E. Normally have to enroll in that program. First, just ask the library and about. Library card and the summer reading program, and they will share it, share with you about that, but you can also find that information usually on your library's website.

But that gets your kiddo excited about reading and excited about reading is so important for learning to read. And loving to read and developing knowledge and information all throughout their lifespan. So that starts in very early childhood and infancy. So read, read, read, read. The next place we're going to go is we're going to take a nature walk. We're going to find a. Park or field or some woods or someplace around a lake.

And we're just going to take a nature walk and you can take a brown paper bag or a Ziploc bag or an egg carton. And begin collecting. Collecting items like rocks and leaves. That building a collection is a math skill. It's a pre math skill. So it's foundational for. Learning to do math later in school. And again, that starts early in life. It also helps build a script of language skills when mom or dad are talking about the collection that the child is creating.

So as your kiddo picks up rocks, you can say, oh, that one's brown and smooth. It's heavy. Look, this one is. Cray and bumpy or rough. And it's light. So making those comparisons comparison, even when you're using language to describe the comparison is a math skill and it's building vocabulary. So talking, talking, talking about everything your child is doing. And T describing what they're doing is super important. And building those collections.

So. Help them build their math skills, allow them to collect a little jackety junk along the way. And the final idea that I have is visit a museum. Now museums. Aren't everybody's thing. But. You could visit one museum for one morning or one afternoon in order to expose your child. To a variety of art and just something different. It's it's good for their brains. So there is a museum. It's an art museum, about an hour from my home. And I have taken. Our children there when they were younger.

And I had. They all seem to enjoy it. It's it's a quick walkthrough. It's not a whole, it's not, they don't experience it the same way that an adult does, but that's okay. So you can walk through the museum and you can describe some of the paintings. You can talk about how, Ooh, look at this painting. There's a lot of thick paint glopped onto that canvas. Do you hear the rich words there glopped and canvas that rich vocabulary. Are they words you would normally use at home? Maybe not. Maybe.

So. But talking about all of the different items. That are considered art. There's an exhibit that is. Completely all handmade. Macrame items and about how you can talk about how that art is made out of thread or yarn. About how some art is paint. Some. Some art is made out of clay. Just talking about all those really simple, basic things that are new to kiddos and describing and saying, which are you like? And I, myself am not an.

Artist or art connoisseur, but, but I can look at a painting and tell you, oh, I like those bright colors in that painting. Or oh, look, there's trees in this picture here. I bet that's called a landscape. So talking about those sort of things are great ways to build their vocabulary, expose your children to some culture, do something really different. And if you live in a part of the country, like I do, they get super hot, hot, hot in August. In September. Museums are air conditioned.

And I'm comfortable to, to be in. So there are some end of summer. Things to do, and you can do those with your kiddos as young, as infants and strollers, all the way up to school agers and through school agers. And just have a great time enjoying the time and space with your kiddos. You can do these activities in the evenings or on the weekends or during the week. Whether you're a work from home parent or you're a parent that is in the home full time, or if you're in the marketplace.

You just have to make it fit into your schedule. That. That suits your family would love to hear from some of you. Who tried the activities. And would love to hear a description. And if you could just shoot me an email at Marla at the growing parent. Dot net. I love to hear about your adventures and if you would do me a favor. If you like the activities and the podcast, if you could. Give me a great review. A five star review would be excellent. I'd really appreciate it. It helps me out.

So you have a wonderful last six weeks a year summer. Enjoy your people. They grow so very, very fast.