When Boredom Strikes in the Summer

It happens every summer, the inevitable "I'm bored!!" and "What are we going to do today??" phrases fly out of the kids' mouths around here.  In our home, you get a job when you're fourteen to help alleviate this and make money for college:

 But for the younger set, we hang up a daily schedule that looks like this:

Daily Duties:

Start, switch and fold a load of laundry
Put away laundry and clean room
30 minutes of quiet reading
20 min of summer packets, Grade books, IXL, or Khan
20 minutes of piano/violin (Xander and Declan) - Brendan and Maggie can color/draw/legos
60 minutes of playing outside and/or exercise
Take Lucy Out (and feed her and give water)
Clean for screens

I bought a journal for boys that ended up in the little boys bedroom, and apparently Brendan (age 5) has been writing in it before bed.  He goes to bed at 7:00 and Declan (age 8) goes to bed at 7:30 ever since he received his First Communion and gained that extra half hour privilege.  I guess Brendan reads and writes in the journal until Declan comes to bed and then they chat for a bit and fall asleep pretty quickly after that.  Maggie took a photo and sent it to me from his Letter to Jesus...

... I'll interpret :)

Dear Jesus,

I often wonder about you.

I want to ask you what is it like to fly.

Please help our family.

I want to tell you how is it to be in Heaven.

I want to thank you for my family.

Some of the things that I like to build or make include legos.

Unprompted: I love you God.

I don't know about you, but I wasn't writing letters to Jesus when I was five years old.  This is why it's so important to have books and journals that lay around the house and give good example for when they are bored enough to pick them up.  

The whiteboards and markers that I bought years ago are still going strong, especially in the summer months.  The kids always pull these out to have drawing contests, play games, or just leave notes to make us laugh.  Eamon was the artist behind this one :)

 

We also try to do ONE.FUN.THING.A.DAY and if it's for free, that's even better :)  We belong to the YMCA, so we use their outdoor pools in the summer:

We go to the zoo near us (also members there), go for a bike ride, take them to a park and playground, set up plans with cousins/friends, go to the library, get $1 chill zones from Cumby's, go to daily Mass, get ice cream, and of course we go to the beach a lot as well.  Little boys are like puppies; as long as they are fed and ran around, they will stay out of trouble and sleep well.  We are not a family that sits around, as we know that fresh air and activity make us happy.  And I don't feel guilty putting on a movie after dinner when they've been healthy and active all day :)