Week 2s Five

1.  Toy Car Wash With Lots of Suds

This is a great activity for a hot summer day. The boys enjoy this as much as playing in the water hose and that is saying a lot !

Materials:

1.  Water hose

2.  Dish soap

3.  Toys to clean  (we cleaned trucks)

4.  Pick at least one of these containers – Bucket , plastic pool, Water table, or Plastic Sand box (clean and without sand.)
5.  Each child will need at least one of these- cleaning rag, Scrub brush, or sponge.

Instructions:

1.  Put on Bathing suits and sun block.

2.  Surround the work area with as many washable toys as you want to clean.

3.  Skirt dish soap into your chosen container or containers and add water with the hose to make a lot of  suds.

4.  Pick up a cleaning rag, scrub brush, or sponge and start cleaning toys using your container of soapy water.

5.  After all the toys have been washed, line them up on the lawn and rinse them clean with the water hose.
You can let everything dry in the sun or set up a towl drying station.

2. Make a Water Balloon Piñata

I found this activity at Ziggity Zoom.

It not only works, but it's a BLAST!  The boys were very focussed on smashing each and every balloon and they did it with Zeal and Determination.

Below are a few helpful notes from our experience.

• Just hanging the balloons is an exciting activity (They can burst at any time.)  
• You can see by our photos that we spaced our balloons farther apart than suggested by Ziggity Zoom; we also place them in a line rather than a bunch (this made them easier to hang).  
• We used curling ribbon instead of string because it was on hand.  Cotton string would most likely work best.
• We found our Blue bat at Dollar Tree for - a dollar.
• We used 9" balloons.
  
  

3. Creative writing with Picture Prompt Story Starters

Motivate your children to write their own stories with the help of the great "Picture Story Starters" we found at Story It.

BEWARE: Some of these pictures will make you smile!!!!

4. Homemade Ice Cream in a Bag

Follow these instructions from the Family Fun web site for this summer treat.

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 cup half and half
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup salt (The bigger the granules, the better. Kosher or rock salt works best, but table salt is fine.)

• Ice cubes (enough to fill each gallon-size bag about half full)
• 1 pint-size ziplock bag
• 1 gallon-size ziplock bag

Instructions

1. 
   
   Combine the sugar, half and half, and vanilla extract in the pint-size bag and seal it tightly.
2. 
   
   Place the salt and ice in the gallon-size bag, then place the sealed smaller bag inside as well. Seal the larger bag. Now shake the bags until the mixture hardens (about 5 minutes). Feel the small bag to determine when it's done.
3. 
   
   Take the smaller bag out of the larger one, add mix-ins, and eat the ice cream right out of the bag. Easy cleanup too! Serves 1.