Kendyl Brooks, student intern from Upper Cape Cod Technical School will be adding her thoughts on this blog, here is her first post!

Spring has finally sprung here in Falmouth, MA and we sure are excited about it! Things as simple as riding bikes, sidewalk chalk, or just passing a ball back and forth can get the whole family outdoors moving around. Spring is a great time to have picnics and enjoy time outdoors with your child. Young children love to go on bug hunts, and collect things like rocks (save them for a rainy day and paint them with watercolors!). Then you can use these collections to create your own Fairy Houses!

Fairy Houses at FGNS

Something that may require warmer weather and a lot of patience is a homemade slip and slide! Put a painters’ tarp on the lawn, and run the hose from the top of it; kids will be entertained for hours! A nice walk on the beach to collect shells and rocks (maybe even sea glass!) is a great way to get exercise and spend time together as a family. Bike washes and toy car washes are tons of fun, along with washing an actual car. If you have a garden kids love to help planting things, or pulling weeds. Even if you don’t have a garden, kids will enjoy hours of fun just digging and playing in the mud.

A little imagination can go a long way for those rainy days where you are stuck inside. Although kids love to watch “Frozen” on repeat all day, hearing “Let It Go” for the thousandth time might just be getting old. Something my mother did for my brother and I when we were children was to get a huge cardboard box, and a big tub of crayons. For hours we would lay in the box and just color. It’s a non-messy, creative and inexpensive project. Imagine what the box could be, a truck a boat, a chariot! Another fun rainy day project is making a blanket fort! Children of almost any age enjoy stretching blankets out over the couches, and spending the day in their newly made forts.

Board games are great for sharpening their fine motor and problem solving skills. Getting children to be active inside is as easy as blowing up a few balloons and playing “Don’t Let It Touch the Ground.” A game of indoor hopscotch using painters tape on the floor, and a stuffed toy or beanbag for the pebble is a great way to get the kids up and moving around.

Spring is a great time to enjoy the company of your family both indoors and out. These ideas highlight some simple ways to spend time together.

Happy Spring,

Kendyl