One-Derr Blog: Free or Nearly Free Summer Activities

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Free or Nearly Free Summer Activities

School is out! Summer has begun! What are you going to do with your kids? Need a few ideas? Here's a list of summer activities that are free or nearly free. If you have any other favorite things to do during the summer that would fit in the "free" or "nearly free" categories, please leave a comment and pass your ideas along too!

-Go to the library--lots of free reading programs, story times, and summer movies.

-Join the reading rewards programs at Borders, Barnes & Noble, HEBuddy, or Half Price Books. (The Half Price Books one is our favorite.)

-Check out the wading pools! There are several in the Des Moines area, and they're free!

-Have a picnic.

-Check out the various farmer's markets.

-Join up with KidsBowlFree, where, you guessed it--kids bowl free! You still have to pay for shoe rental, but they'll e-mail you coupons for 2 free games per day, all summer!

-Catch a movie for $1. Cinemark has theaters showing kids movies each Tuesday for $1. Check here for a theater near you and a list of movies showing this summer. (If you're in the Des Moines area, this is at Jordan Creek.)

-Windsor Heights is offering free outdoor concerts every Tuesday night, and free outdoor movies every Friday night throughout the summer. Check here for details.

-Fly a kite.

-Set up the sprinklers and let your kids run through them. Great for the grass and for hot kids!

-Let your kids paint outside with water. They can paint on whatever they want--the water will evaporate quickly.

-Go on a nature hike. (Make up your own scavenger hunt or Bingo cards.)

-Tour the parks in your neighborhood. Turn your kids into "park testers" and have them evaluate and give each park a grade.

Let me know if you come across or think of more to do! Enjoy the summer!

3 comments:

Jenny said...: Did you see the list of $1 movies? I was disappointed that this year they are all PG. We went to Alvin because the girls had already seen it anyway, but I don't know if we'll be going to any more of them. I always check Christiananswers.net for movie reviews and so far they have not been too favorable for the movies they are showing. Bummer.; June 12, 2010 at 9:26 PM
Peggy said...: we used to hang a sprinkler from a tree like a shower, and let the kids use soap crayons on themselves; June 12, 2010 at 9:47 PM
Heather said...: Jenny--yes, I did see that. That is too bad. Last year there was a good mix of PG and G movies.

Peggy--that sounds like a fun idea! I never thought about putting it in a tree or something. That reminded me, another thing my mom used to do is give us a can of shaving cream and let us play with that out in the water too. That was fun. :); June 13, 2010 at 7:29 AM

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Quotable Ashlyn Quotes

When the guys came to do some cement work on the room addition, Ashlyn let me know by exclaiming, "They're here! The ones who are going to build our salvation--the school room!"

Ashlyn: "Dad, can you contemplate altruistic?" (Yes, she said that, and yes, she's only 3.)

Ashlyn has been heard recently singing some interesting lyrics to a few well-known tunes.
1. Row, row, row your boat, gently down the street...
2. The ants go marching round and round, hurrah! Hurrah!
3. ...Don Vienna get a barrel... (from Deck the Halls..."Now we don our gay apparel...")

"Someday I'm going to live at Grandma's and have a flying pony named Star Wars and she can talk!"

Ashlyn: "Mom! You got your new pajama pants on!"
Me: "Yep. Do you like them?"
Ashlyn: "Well, no. They're not a good ration of soft. Daddy's are a good ration of soft, but yours aren't."

"These are interesting lights. I didn't know they turned on and off."

"Hey Mom! My tiger is wondering why he has a tail!"

Ashlyn told me she was worried about a bear coming into the house, because she was afriad it would make muddy footprints all over the floor. And it would make our arms tired to clean up all the muddy footprints.

"When I grow up, I want to be a giant!"

"I have a hypothesis! I think the potato soup needs to be hot!"

One day I asked her if she liked chickens. A simple question, or so it seemed. But a rather unexpected answer. She replied, "No, because I fink if I ask someone, 'Are deese your chickens?' dell say, 'No, dey're someone else's.' Dat's why I don't like chickens. Because I fink dey'll be somebody else's!"

"I don't need the doctor to doctor me, because I'm going to tell the doctor dare isn't any part of my body dat hurts!!"

"The sun has fire on it. And if I get too close, it will fire me!"

She must think about fire a lot. Another day she said, "If I got fire on my bottom, my nerves would say, 'Ouch!'"

She has also told me on more than one occasion, "If the firemen had to come, dey would have to put fire on me!"

One day I heard Ashlyn singing, "My car is so BIG, so strong and so mighty, my God has nuffing to do!" Hmmm... an interesting twist on the VeggieTales song?

"I'm boring, boring, boring! Dare's nuffing to do!"

While watching a singer perform on TV, "Mom! There is one singer and some violiners... They're violining so she can sing!"

Ashlyn: "I have some water in my throat and the doggy is eating it."
Me: "The doggy is eating it??" (We don't have a doggy.)
Ashlyn: "Uh-hua--The pizza doggy from last night is in my throat eating my water!!"

"Can we buy some cheese at Hy-Vee if the sun is out?"

While watching a recap of the space shuttle's last take off, Ashlyn remarked, "When I was a little kid, I used to fly in a rocket!"

"It's a big hand water!!" (Water spilling into the street from a big hose.)

Ashlyn came up with her tape measure to see how tall we all were. She told Dakota he is 4-9-7-8 pounds, Emma is 1-6-8-4-7 pounds, and I'm not even going to say how big I am!

"Dad! I'm pretending to baptism Chuck E. Cheese!"

Ashlyn: "I wish Santa would come to my house."
Me: "What do you want Santa to do at your house?"
Ashlyn: "Play with me... Play Candy Land. Santa can be red and I'll be blue."

Ashlyn is NOT my cuddly child, so it was an awwwww moment when she came up to me and said, "Mom, I need a little love," and then climbed up into my lap.

"My teeths still hurt. Better put a band-aid on them."

"Something's wrong with my bottom--it's got spices all over it!"

While dancing with her stuffed animals: "Now it's time to spice things up!"

"Happy Valentines Day!" she shouted excitedly to a trick-or-treater who came to our door.

"I'm not making you fun, Mom." (She meant to say she wasn't making fun of me.)

She told her big sister, "Sorry for ow-ing you. Will you please forgive me?"

Ashlyn: "What was that?"
Me: "It was just the house cracking."
Ashlyn: "Good."

"I don't have any 'ballet tards.' Will you help me find my 'ballet tards?'"
We had to play a little 20 questions, but I finally figured out that "ballet tards" is what she calls her dancing shoes.

"I want some smashed potatoes! They're very smashy!"

Ashlyn to her daddy: "Did you have a good, fun time sleeping?"

(While out for a walk...)
Ashlyn: "What's that?"
Me: "It's a moving truck."
Ashlyn: "No, it's a stopping truck!" (The truck was parked in front of a house.)
I love 2-yr old logic!

"I want some 'smoopie' mom!" (smoopie=smoothie)

Ashlyn: "I don't want to change my diaper!"
Me: "Ok,I'll change it for you."

Quotable Emma Quotes

Mom to Emma: "What do you think Dad and I were like before you were born?"
Emma: "I don't know--lonely? Like you really wanted to have kids?"

Ashlyn: "Why do snowflakes fall to the ground so silently?"
Emma: "Because they're light and fluffy--like when we drop pancakes on our plates and it hardly makes a sound."

Emma: "Do you think chocolate is kind of like a mouth massage?"

"Oh, Ashlyn, you make everything seem a delight."

"I'm going to do gymnastics until I'm 24 years old, so I'll have really big muscles. And then I'll get married."

The great thing about homeschooling is I'm always learning new things. Like one day, we were reading about and looking at pictures of bears, when Emma said, "I didn't know some bears have very pointed ears, like fairies. Fairies have pointed ears, you know." See, I learned something that day.

On Emma's long-awaited half birthday I asked her, "Now that you're 5 and 1/2, what new things will you be able to do today that you've never been able to do before?" She thought about it and then excitedly said, "Maybe I can do all the laundry for you!"

"Mom, who do you think has the most eyelashes? Me or Ashlyn?"

"Why did the Cheerio paint itself purple? Because it wanted to be a Fruit Loop!" Gotta love 5 year old jokes.

"Will you please idolize me?"

Included in her lunch prayer today was a thanks to God for "the color pink and for rainbow flowers."

"Did the 'hot guys' win? Are the 'hot guys' the Iowa team?" Asking about the Iowa (Hawkeyes) football team.

Emma's new word: "yester-night." It means that part of yesterday that happened at night.

In her serious voice, Emma said to me, "Mom, I wish you hadn't married Dad, so I could marry him when I grow up."

Emma was learning about the 4 seasons in preschool, and we asked her what they were. "Winter, summer, fall... (long pause) and August?"

Emma told me, "I'm glad I know how the sun goes down. But I still don't know how the sun comes up." So I asked, "How does the sun go down?" She said,"It just goes down in its shell, like a crab." She later informed me that the sun's shell is invisible.

Emma: "He was a grabbing icon!" (referring to Zaccheaus and the fact he was a tax collector who often collected more than his fair share) "But when God changed his heart, he was a grabber-not."
Me: "A grabbernaut? Is that like an astronaut?" :)
Emma: "No silly. He was not greedy, not foolish, and he wasn't grabbing all the money."

"Here Ashlyn!" Emma said as she handed her sister a toy dinosaur. "It's from the movie, 'Shakin' & Hams.'"
Me: "What's 'Shakin' & Hams'?"
Emma: "It's a movie where if you shake a dinosaur, it turns into a ham!"

The "GPS" truck stopped at our house today and dropped off some packages.

We were having dinner at the mall's food court. With two big slices of pizza on our tray, Emma announced, "I want the one with the big mole on it." Ah-em, that's a big cheese bubble, not a mole.

"Look, that's a heap!" (The rest of us would probably refer to it as a Jeep.) "Oh yeah, that's what I meant--a Jeep."

"I think where the signs are means 'leggidycapt.'" (leg-a-dee-capt) Emma said, as she pointed out what she thought were handicapt signs in a parking lot.

At Target, Emma pointed to a display of DVD's. "Can we get the show with the chunky bunnies?" (Alvin & the Chipmunks)

Emma said she wanted to have a "bear day at school" with her dolls. A few minutes later she came and asked Dakota to help take her doll's clothes off, and he asked her why. She said they were having a day where they don't wear any clothes to school. Bare day! Not bear day! Where in the world did she get that idea?

"Hey, it's really hoggy today!" Emma commented on the way to school. Dakota asked, "You mean 'foggy'?" She said, "Yeah, that's what I meant."

"Yea! Two princess vitamins! They are friends, and they are going to play regular checkers together!" (You mean, before you eat them? I didn't know princess vitamins played regular checkers.)

Emma ate a pink jelly bean today, and I asked her what flavor she thought it was. She said, "I think it's sparkle powder flavor!" Funny, I don't remember that being listed as a flavor on the bag.

Emma: "Someday I want to be a fairy."
Me: "What would you do if you were a fairy?"
Emma: "I would turn my bath into Jell-O!"

"Someday when I'm a grown up, I'm going to look for a house that has a gun in it." (as in a house to buy) I asked Emma why she wanted a house with a gun in it, and of course her answer was an easy one, "Because I want to go hunting!"

The news had a story on about Obama yesterday during lunch. Emma heard his name and exclaimed excitedly, "He's my favorite president! I vote for him!" So I asked her what it is that she likes about him. After a brief pause, she said, "I just think he's a good eater."
(Forget about the economy, health care, and Iraq--he's a good eater! Why didn't I have this information on election day??)

Redikalus (Ridiculous)--Emma's word of the day. When asked what it meant, she said, "It means when you don't have something you need. Like if you don't have regular sized pajamas, that's redikalus!"

At church on Sunday, Emma noticed that no one was playing the drumbs or cymbals. She told Dakota, who said, "That's right, there's no drummer today." And Emma quickly replied, "And no cymbaler!"

"Please may I have some more goat bacon?" (I think she meant turkey bacon.)

"I'm spoiled. I'm soooo spoiled!"

Emma kept repeating that at dinner last night after eating only a few bites of food. I think she was trying to say she had spoiled her appetite and was full, but it came across a little differently.

"I got a slither on my finger!" (sliver)

Me: "Emma, what do you want to be when you grow up?"
Emma: "A helper... a helper for the laundramat."
Me: "Do you even know what a laundromat is?"
Emma: "It's a store where you wash your clothes."

"What a nice day to eat cool, fresh oatmeal!"

Dakota asked Emma what she had learned in preschool on Friday. She replied, "We learned to not be killing other people" (Ten Commandments, and THAT was the one that stuck!)

"Do we have any blue underwear? Amen!" Emma uses the montior in her bedroom as a walkie-talkie to say things to us downstairs. And for some reason, she always ends whatever she's saying with "Amen!"

Emma was arranging some pumpkin stickers up high on the window. I asked her if they were a pumpkin family. She said, "They're not a family, they're astronauts!"

Emma and I went to a dog show at the library, where the dog did a few tricks and his owner talked a lot. Afterward, I asked Emma what she thought of the dog show. She said, "I think it was nutritious."

“What’s that?” (Emma pointed out the window of the van. I looked, but wasn’t sure what she was asking about. Then she answered her own question…) “Oh, I thought it was a goose, but then I saw it was just a person.”

When we were in the shoe section of a store, she stepped into a foot measurer and loudly asked, "Mom how old is my foot?"

“Someday I'll say goodbye to you guys and I'll marry a prince. [pause] No... I won't marry a prince... but I WILL be a dentist!"

"I want the buttered cow.” (and later, on the way home…) “We didn’t get to try the buttered cow. We only got to see it.” (Referring to the butter cow on display at the state fair.)

“You tap it on the bowl and then you hatch it.” (How to add an egg to cake mix)

When playing Little People with Emma, she explained that her Jeff and Jenny little people lived on a farm. When asked what kind of farm they lived on, she replied, “It’s a farm that makes hay, jelly beans and fish that you can eat.”

“My Little People are crucifying their food. They just crucified the ice cream and now it’s in the tomb.”

When asked what she wanted for breakfast one morning, Emma replied, “Strawberry with Minnie Mouse wheats with frosting.” (Strawberry cereal, along with frosted mini wheats.)

When playing “hot and cold” one day…
Dad: “Emma, you’re getting colder.”
Emma: “That’s ok, I have my pretend hat on.”

"I have sparkles in my legs!" (Meaning her legs had fallen asleep and felt prickly.)

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Free or Nearly Free Summer Activities

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