A few days ago my daughter said, wistfully, "Remember last summer when we did a craft project every day?". My first thought was, wooo hoo! I made an actual memory for my kid! and it was a good one. Parenting win! My second thought was, dammit, how am I going to do that again?  Then I got an email from Beth (of Sew Mama Sew fame) telling me about an online summer crafts camp called the Summer Camp Adventure Club. Problem solved.

What is the Summer Camp Adventure Club? I'll let Beth describe it:

Summer Camp Adventure Club is a subscription-based, online “camp” (an eCourse/online class) where Pre-K through 3-4 grade campers get fun, new ideas every day throughout the summer. There’s a new theme every week in June, July and August. Each weekly theme includes tons of inspiring projects, activities, journal prompts, downloads, recipes and more. Kids get the inspiration and guidance they need to work more independently to create projects they love.

Full disclosure: I was given a free month of club membership in exchange for spreading the word, but honestly I'm going to purchase subscriptions for July and August. I could be my normal cheapskate self and do it all myself (with the help of my pinterest boards), but with three little kids running and screaming around the house day in and day out, I don't always have the brain power to think up, organize, and get a project going for the kids.  Summer Camp Adventure Club to the rescue! Come on, join the club!

Today is the first day of advent! Did you make your advent calendar yet? We are still using the string of lights advent calendar I made a few years ago. I put activities in each of the little bulbs and I love it. I write up the activity the night before (surprise your kids, not yourself!) and all the projects keep me on task for christmas.  If cookies need to be made, or christmas cards written, or gifts wrapped it's going to happen if it is in the advent calendar--the 4 and 6 year olds will demand it!

A friend of mine (hi Ellen!) asked me to write up a little list of activities she could use, so here they are! I divided them into effort needed, because sometimes you really need to drink some (spiked) eggnog while the kids watch a movie.

big projects

• make christmas cards
• pipe cleaner ornaments
• meringue snowmen
• bake cookies, cookies, cookies, and candy
• make a gingerbread house
• string cranberries and popcorn (or just cranberries, or dried cranberries and golden raisins, or whatever else is in your cupboard)
• borax snowflakes
• giant cardboard christmas trees
• make pine cone + peanut butter +bird seed feeders and watch the birds eat
• egg carton jingle bells

little projects

• make paper snowflakes (use coffee filters for easy cutting)
• write a letter to santa
• make gift tags
• make dried orange slices ornaments
• wrap presents
• deliver cookies to neighbors
• make jars of love
• make a gingerbread mobile (this is a quick project only if the cookies are already made, of course)
• make pomanders
• woven ornaments (these were a hit with my kids last year)

if it's cold and snowy projects

• make snow angels
• go sledding (or have a whole sledding party!)
• make ice wreathes
• build a snow fort or a snowman
• have a picnic outside (with a thermos of hot chocolate and some cookies)
• go ice skating
• blow ice bubbles

phoning it in projects

• hot chocolate with marshmallows
• call grandma and grandpa
• dress up like an elf/santa/wise man/christmas tree
• dance to christmas music
• camp out under the tree (this may or may not be an easy one)
• color christmasy pictures--oh look I have a bunch right here
• look at pictures from christmases past
• I think one year I actually wrote down "eat christmas cookies" for an activity

for the whole family

• drive around looking at chrismtas lights
• dress up in your fanciest for dinner
• make popcorn and watch a christmas movie
• go see the nutcracker/christmas carol/holiday concert
• cut down a christmas tree/ put up your christmas tree
• decorate the tree!
• put up lights outside
• go for a evening walk

This list is my no means exhaustive. Some of these we do every year, some are new ones I'd like to try. Do you have any christmas activities or projects for advent? I'm always on the look out for good ones.

Here are a few bits from our summer I never got around telling you about:

waking up to a parade of animals

living on muffin tin lunches

making giant bubbles

painting with chalk

making popsicle stick sculptures with pompoms and mama's hot glue gun.

eating monkey cupcakes

and staying up too late to watch people dance in the trees.

There were of course many trips to the beach and weekend festivals and backyard sprinkler days and huddled by the air conditioner watching movies days. And I think it was a pretty good summer all and all. All three kids were home with me full time and managed not to lose my mind until the last week or so. I tried to have at least one project a day--here is my kid craft board on pinterest that I used a bunch--sometimes just as simple as cutting up some fruit for lunch, but it helped give our days some structure.  I hope your summer was wonderful! Now bring on fall.

Towards the end of fall each year we close up the porch and try to fit all the play that happens out there inside.  Mostly it's art. We have a big armoire filled with paints and markers and paper and glue and acorns and cottons balls and whatever else could be used to make pictures or sculptures or collages. It's lovely to have a space where the two big kids can go whenever they have a need to make something, but where the crayon eating baby cannot.

Our house is about 900 square feet, so finding room for anything can be difficult, but art is very important to my kids (and me!) so we have to carve out space every last crayon. Last year I came up with the art box. It's a wooden wine crate I trash picked filled with art supplies that I store in our closet/office and take down whenever the kids ask.  They can work on the dining room table (conveniently covered in chalkboard cloth) away from curious baby hands. Last year one box was enough, but over the summer it seems the materials we work with has grown.

After much rearranging, the art box has become the art shelf. Everything is organized into wooden boxes and labeled with chalk.  I can take out one thing or everything and the kids can put it all away before I put it back in the closet. I'm planning to swap out things as the year goes on. Do you have any suggestions? Is there any good or unusual art material your kids are into?

On the bottom of the box some awesome kid scrawled in big letters KISS! Alive! and it makes me happy everytime I see it as I take the art box down.  And makes me want to get out my old Kiss tapes.

A while back when it was raining nonstop we made these very sweet rain paintings, but now that it's extra hot I was thinking I'd turn on the sprinkler and make sprinkler paintings instead. I found the project at the crafty crow-- where you can find every kid's art project ever thought up--and you can find the original post about it here.  To make rain paintings  you crush up watercolor paints (we put them in plastic bags and banged on them with a rolling pin), sprinkle them on some paper and put it out in the rain.

It's such a simple and quick project, but every part of it was exciting for the kids (and me): whacking the paints with the rolling pin, using the paints we "made" and standing out in the rain waiting to see what would happen.

After you decide the picture is done and pick it up, all the paint will run (and your sidewalk will turn bright blue). I was kind of disappointed when this happened, but my kids squealed with joy.  We hung them up in the window to dry and they were so beautiful with the sun shining through them. The whole porch was bright and glowing even though it was still raining outside.

The pictures do fade when they dry, but then you can take a pen and turn your rain painting into a beautiful rain garden.

I had grand plans to do project after project with my kids this summer, but there has been more lazing around than anything else. This project, though, is right up my alley: simple, quick, bright, and all about the process. Anyone got any good preschool age art projects to recommend that have been a success? I'm thinking marble painting is next.