Summer Fun

• Make a string treasure hunt through your house
• Go on a name scavenger hunt
• DIY Shrinky Dinks with recycled plastic
• Read-Aloud: I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen, performed by The Little Angel Theatre
• Read-Aloud: Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Eric Carle, read by Gwyneth Paltrow
• Watch Lil Buck improvise dances based on art he sees and do some improvisational dance of your own
• Experiment with invisible ink made from citrus fruit
• Go on a LIVE African safari from the comfort of your home, daily at 8:30 am on YouTube

• Read-Aloud: The Listening Walk by Paul Showers
• Go on a listening walk
• Make a tin can xylophone
• Make wind chimes out of tin cans
• Watch the classic Peter and the Wolf animation, with music by Prokofiev and narration by David Bowie, to learn more about instruments in the orchestra
• Read-Aloud: Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You See? by Eric Carle, read by Gwyneth Paltrow
• Read-Aloud: The Very Quiet Cricket by Eric Carle, animated by Illuminated Films
• Read-Aloud: Zoogie Boogie by Sujean Rim, read by Darren Criss
• Read-Aloud: Squeak, Rumble, Whomp, Whomp, Whomp by Wynton Marsalis, performed by The Upside Arts Company
• Read-Aloud: Bonsoir, Lune by Margaret Wise Brown, read in French by Michael Vartan (listen and see if you can recognize or guess what the French words are in English!)

• Guess that scent for snack time
• Make orange-scented play dough
• Scented color mixing experiment
• Tea bag matching game
• Scented ice experiment
• Scented water sensory bin
• Read-Aloud: The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf
• Read-Aloud: Brian the Smelly Bear by Mark Chambers
• Make apple volcanoes

• Read-Aloud: The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, animated by Illuminated Films
• Make cardboard tube caterpillars and practice math skills by feeding them
• Make caterpillar cookies with all the fruit from The Very Hungry Caterpillar
• Read-Aloud: Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss, read by Kate Winslet
• Make green eggs and ham for a fun literary meal
• Read-Aloud: Bread and Jam for Frances by Russell & Lillian Hoban, read by Kate Winslet
• Go strawberry picking at a local orchard or farm and then make fresh jam together
• Learn how applesauce is made, from the farm to your table, right here in Maryland
• Cook up some delicious treats together
• Gather some dandelions from your yard (if you don’t use pesticides or other chemical treatments) and fry up fritters
• Pick up some Jelly Belly jellybeans and do a taste test

• Go on a texture scavenger hunt in nature
• Play with shaving cream
• Build a sticky spider web out of masking tape
• Guess what items are in texture touch boxes
• Make a Rube Goldberg machine
• DIY Window Clings
• Guess what’s inside the balloons simply by touch
• Read-Aloud: The Penguin and the Pea by Janet Perlman
• Read-Aloud: Don’t Touch This Book by Bill Cotter
• Make homemade paper
• Mix up some homemade finger paint

• Go on a road trip to get some homemade ice cream at Rocky Mountain Creamery in Tuscarora
• Watch Big Bird visit a farm on Sesame Street
• Read-Aloud: A Day On the Farm by Nancy Fielding Kulik
• Take a virtual field trip to a dairy farm
• Take a virtual field trip to egg farms
• Make a pop-up paper farm
• Read-Aloud: Farmer Duck by Martin Waddell
• Create your own micro-farm by planting veggies
• Make farm animal windsocks

• Go stargazing any time of the day
• See what you can discover in outer space
• Take a tour of the International Space Station
• Make Star Wars paper snowflakes
• Listen to an astronaut reading a book from orbit
• Get a sense of the size and scale of the universe with Powers of Ten
• Make space-themed suncatchers
• DIY Moon Rocks
• Create your own straw rockets
• Listen to Recess Monkey’s album The Final Funktier

• Experiment with liquids of different densities
• Build a seascape using water beads
• Do printmaking with bubble wrap for a whole school of fish
• Make jellyfish mobiles out of cardboard tubes
• Learn “There’s a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea”
• Read-Aloud: Mister Seahorse by Eric Carle
• Listen to Recess Monkey’s album Deep Sea Diver
• Read-Aloud: Ocean Animals from Head to Tail by Stacey Roderick
• See for yourself what’s in the ocean with underwater live streams

• Make some land art with found natural materials
• Collect leaves and do some negative leaf impressions or leaf rubbings
• Cook s’mores in your kitchen
• Paint a magical forest
• Play pretend with these printable animal crowns
• Print out and enjoy The Book of Stuff to Do Outside
• Learn what different groups of animals are called
• Make a cardboard forest
• Read-Aloud: The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, read by Michelle Obama

• Make thank you cards for medical caregivers and essential personnel.
• Make Gratitude Keepers out of jars, vases, or any reusable container.  Printable labels and gratitude slips can be found here.
• Bake a special treat for a neighbor and leave it outside their door. Feel free to print out these “I’m GRAPE-ful for you” notes to give with it!
• Find things you are grateful for in old magazines, cut them out, and create a collage.
• Write something you are grateful for on a large piece of paper or cardboard, take a picture, and share it on social media.
• Play “The ABCs of Gratitude” by taking turns naming things you are grateful for in alphabetical order. Some are bound to get silly, so enjoy yourself!
• Do Gratitude Yoga.
• Take a thankful nature walk.
• Use masking tape to write a note of encouragement in your front window! Don’t forget to write the letters backward so people walking by can read them.
• This is a difficult time for many of us. Your family can help process recent events together with the Rose, Thorn, Bud activity at https://www.mindfulschools.org/inspiration/mindful-reflection/.
• Brainstorm a list of places you visited frequently before the pandemic but haven’t been as often since (grocery stores, libraries, schools, favorite restaurants, museums, zoos, parks, gyms, after-school programs, etc.). As a family, write positive reviews for these places on common websites – Yelp, Facebook, Google Reviews, TripAdvisor – to express your gratitude.

• Make a pinwheel.
• Color pages with mandalas.
• Sing along or have a dance party to your favorite playlists.
• Watch tropical fish swim in the ocean at https://explore.org/livecams/oceans/pacific-aquarium-tropical-reef-camera or https://explore.org/livecams/oceans/cayman-reef-cam.
• Make a calming ocean in a bottle or a jellyfish in a bottle.
• Use some of your leftover toilet paper rolls to blow bubbles with dish soap!
• Count backwards from 100 by ones, twos, and fives. If you’re feeling up for a challenge, try threes, fours, sixes, sevens, eights, and nines!
• Take a mindful hike.
• Look around your house for things of all different colors and organize them into a color wheel by hue.
• Practice drawing Zentangles! You can find ideas at https://craftwhack.com/zentangle/ and https://craftwhack.com/zentangle-patterns-starter-sheets/.
• Make some origami together.
• Cook up some play dough from Seneca Academy preschool’s tried-and-true recipe!

Ingredients
2 cups white flour
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
½ cup salt
2 cups water
4 teaspoons cream of tartar
food coloring (optional)
Directions:
Mix flour, salt and cream of tartar in a medium saucepan. Add water, food coloring and oil. Stir over medium heat 3-5 minutes. When mixture forms a ball, remove from heat, let cool slightly and knead on a floured surface. Store in airtight container in the refrigerator.

• Visit Africa: https://www.africam.com/wildlife/live-african-wildlife-safari-channels/
• Visit Antarctica: http://www.antarctica.gov.au/webcams
• Visit Asia: https://explore.org/livecams/panda-bears/china-panda-cam-2
• Visit South America: https://www.worldlandtrust.org/webcams/
• Visit Central America: https://explore.org/livecams/panama-canopy/panama-fruit-feeder
• Visit Europe: https://www.essexwt.org.uk/protecting-wildlife/wildlife-webcams/badger-webcam
• Visit Australia: https://kidbucketlist.com.au/2020/03/16/8-live-wildlife-webcams-to-watch-from-your-living-room/
• Join iNaturalist, go on a walk, and submit pictures of the flora and fauna around your home to help researchers document the biodiversity of Maryland!
• Go on an outdoor scavenger hunt.
• Play I Spy.
• Take containers of all different sizes outside, fill them with water, and let the kids entertain themselves.
• Make a blanket fort inside and read books by flashlight! Let the kids “camp” and sleep in the fort for the night.
• Watch the clouds together and make up stories about what you see.
• Create a discovery bottle.
• Listen to a serial adventure podcast for kids!

• Watch future service dogs playing right here in Maryland!
• Learn about Jojo the dolphin, who lives in Turks and Caicos and loves to play!
• Go outside to play Nature Bingo.
• Design your own game online with Scratch!
• DIY Board Game https://www.scholastic.com/parents/school-success/learning-toolkit-blog/make-your-own-board-game.html
• Play Outdoor Scrabble.
• Make a bean bag toss game using zippered sandwich bags full of dried beans or rice, and containers of different sizes to represent different difficulty levels.
• Dig out those puzzles you’ve had for years and have never gotten around to! You might not finish them now but you at least can get some pieces sorted!
• Mad Libs: https://www.wordblanks.com/mad-libs/childrens/
• Hide and Seek is always a winner for the whole family.
• Find a pencil and paper to have a Dots and Boxes tournament!
• Get out a few decks of cards and learn some new games.
• Play Land, Sea, and Air.
• Make landing strips out of Legos or painter’s tape and make paper airplanes to land on them!
• Play Fortunately/Unfortunately.

• Explore Atlas Obscura’s Wonder from Home.
• Listen to a podcast that’s fun and educational with Brains On!, Forever Ago, or The Past and the Curious.
• Use your smartphone to see a panda in your living room, a tiger in your backyard, or a shark in your bathtub with Google’s 3-dimensional augmented reality animals!
• Take a look at OK Go’s incredibly exciting music videos and learn all about the science behind them!
• Go outside for a walk and collect or take pictures of the 10 most exciting things you see!
• Construct an obstacle course and see who can get through it the fastest.
• Visit Storyline to watch illustrated stories read by celebrated actors, including Viola Davis, Chris Pine, Kevin Costner, Annette Bening, James Earl Jones, Betty White, and more!
• Learn how to draw the Pigeon with author Mo Willems!
• Scroll through the recommendations of the New York International Children’s Film Festival and have movie night at home!
• Mix things up by having something unusual for dinner, like breakfast or dessert, or let every member of the family pick something to put on the menu!