{"id":7840,"date":"2012-05-23T10:23:52","date_gmt":"2012-05-23T16:23:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/?p=7840"},"modified":"2012-05-23T10:23:52","modified_gmt":"2012-05-23T16:23:52","slug":"staying-sane-this-summer-part-1-the-im-bored-bucket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/2012\/05\/23\/staying-sane-this-summer-part-1-the-im-bored-bucket\/","title":{"rendered":"Staying Sane This Summer, Part 1: The “I’m Bored” Bucket"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summer is here! \u00c2\u00a0The Littlest Apple’s last day of preschool was last Friday.<\/p>\n

This is my first summer as a mother of TWO children and since I’m still learning how to juggle the needs of 2 kids, I thought it best to have a game plan for the summer. \u00c2\u00a0I’m going to spend several blog posts talking about my plan for Staying Sane This Summer.<\/p>\n

Up first, the “I’m Bored” Bucket. \u00c2\u00a0The Little Apple has an amazing imagination, and he spends lots of time pretending. \u00c2\u00a0But there are also plenty of times (particularly those times when I’m paying attention to Slingshot) when he whines and complains about being bored.<\/p>\n

Enter the “I’m Bored” Bucket.<\/p>\n

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I’ve seen variations of this project on several blogs, including Shaydes of Light<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0and Teach Mama<\/a>. \u00c2\u00a0Now when The Littlest Apple complains about being bored, he has to draw a stick from the bucket and do the activity written on the stick. \u00c2\u00a0No ifs, ands, or buts. \u00c2\u00a0Some of them might be fun, like “play in your sandbox” and some might be chores, like “dust.” \u00c2\u00a0I tried to pick things that he wouldn’t need much help with, but there are a few that might need some assistance from Mommy. \u00c2\u00a0My hope is that this will put an end to the whining and complaining about being bored all summer long.<\/p>\n

This was very much a “use what you’ve got project”. \u00c2\u00a0I had all of the supplies on hand. \u00c2\u00a0I wrote out a whole bunch of things for The Little Apple to do on wide popsicle sticks and stuck them in a bucket. \u00c2\u00a0I decorated the bucket with cardstock, chipboard letters, and leftover ribbon scraps.<\/p>\n

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Here are the activities in our “I’m Bored” Bucket:<\/p>\n