Tuesday's Tips for Summer Survival - Art Table and Free Movies

Tuesday's Tips for Summer Survival (TTSS) is a weekly carnival to help mamas survive the long summer days. The goal is to share kid-friendly tips so we can end up on the other side of this summer with what little sanity we had when we started.

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Art Table:
The boys have a small table with two chairs that they used to use for drawing and art projects. Unfortunately it is placed right up against a cream colored chair meaning they need a lot of supervision and the table is so small that there is a lot of jockying for space.

At the start of summer Jack would ask me everyday if he could use the markers and I'd have to stop what I was doing to go make sure the furniture was not getting colored.

Then I had an "ah ha!" moment. You know that big dining room table that never gets used? What if I turned it into a permanent art table (well, at least for the whole summer) that the boys could access whenever their little hearts desired?

First I laid out paper and crayons. Then I added markers and scissors and colored pencils. And from there it has just taken off. Every couple of days I add something else for them to use. And I keep their artwork out so they can keep adding to it. So for example, I have their marble paintings out so they can use them to make a mixed media art project.

The boys spend some part of everyday at that table. Jack even asked me the other day whether or not he's an artist. Here is what you'll find on our art table:

The basics (left out all the time):

• full size sheets of paper (8.5" x 11")
• half size sheets of paper (8.5" x 5.5")
• index cards
• colored pencils
• markers of different thickness
  
• crayons
• scissors
• rulers
  

The occasional supplies:

• glue
• glitter glue
  
• cotton balls
• pipe cleaners
• foam stickers
• leaves and sticks and small flowers
  
• pom poms
• egg cartons
• empty toilet rolls
• empty paper towel rolls
• pieces of thin cardboard (like the backing to a pad of paper)
  

So far we haven't used anything too messy like paints or stamps but I'm guessing that as the summer progresses we will.

I really wanted to break up this text-heavy post with pics of the boys at their art table but I'm having major computer issues and am just lucky that I managed to get this posted at all!

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Free Movies:
Wednesday, July 8 starts the 6 week free movie program at a nearby theater. They are encouraging kids to read a book and complete a form (book report) for admission to a second run kids movie. (And since we don't have $1 theaters where I live this is a great deal!)

Even Logan, at 2 years old, completed a book report last year by drawing (scribbling) a pic on the back of the form.

This is the link to the program through the National Amusements chain but if this chain doesn't have theaters near you, I have heard of other chains offering the same type of program. In fact, if you know of one, please leave it in the comments for others to check out.

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Here's how you can participate in TTSS (and please do):
Grab the code for my button (over there on the left) and write your own post about a kid-friendly idea that might help a mama keep her sanity this summer. (Feel free to include the obligatory cute kid photo!)

Then come back here and add your link to the widget built by my wonderful and geeky talented husband. (Pays to be married to a geek!) Simply add your new (or even an old) post's link to the form below.

Then, most importantly, visit the other blogs that have linked and leave comments, hopefully encouraging them to give us more good ideas next week.