Summer Bucket List

Summer Bucket List 2013!

Summer Bucket List: Bucket-o-Popsicle sticks

What you need:

• popsicle sticks
• bucket or any container capable of holding popsicle sticks
• marker

Summer Bucket List: Photo Bunting

What you need:

• colored paper
• yarn or string
• thumb tacks
• mini clips or paper clips
• camera and ability to print or have photos printed

June is the official start to our summer so we’ve been busy making our summer to do list. There are about a trillion different summer bucket list ideas floating around on the internet. My two favorite are a simple bucket full of Popsicle sticks I saw over at The Home Teacher and a bucket list bunting from the blog The Connection We Share. I couldn’t choose between bucket and bunting so we made both! The popsicle stick bucket because what could be more fun than letting a colored stick decide what the day will hold! And the bunting…mostly because it’s pretty.

Bucket-o-Popsicle Sticks

I picked up a package of large colored popsicle sticks, easy for little hands to grab. While D built walls and glued some of the sticks together we chatted about all the things we wanted to do over the summer. I wrote one activity on each popsicle stick, If you don’t like the idea of having to commit to one activity you can always write an activity on both sides so you have a alternative option. I color coded the sticks so that we would choose activities that fit the weather and the amount of time we had. Yellow is a short sunny day activity, blue a short rainy day activity, red a half day out and green is a day trip, this way depending on our schedule I can ask D to grab a specific colour.

Popsicle stick activities.

Bucket List Bunting

I love the buntingy bucket list because, lets face it, it’s pretty darn adorable. We wrote all our Popsicle stick activities on colored paper in the shape of triangles (you could use pattered paper to cute up your bunting). One thing the bunting list allows for that the Popsicle stick bucket doesn’t is the addition of summer activities that you can’t really do spontaneously, like go to a parade, see fireworks or go to Shakespeare by the sea so we added these super fun summer staples to our bunting in addition to our Popsicle stick activities. The paper triangles were displayed by using mini clips (paper clips would work just as well) to attach the paper to yarn (or string, or wire, or cord, you get the picture). The yarn was wound around thumb tacks in a zigzag design on the wall, easy as cake. Honestly I think this would look much better in just two swooping lines but you work with what you have and we have limited wall space.  Since D can’t read I added pictures to the triangles to help him remember what activities are displayed on the cards. He calls them his adventure cards and he points to different activities and asks questions and talks about them excitedly…the only instance this has backfired on me so far is the card with the boat on it, tipping him off that one of the Popsicle sticks holds a boat ride, now he’s on a hunt. Sorry son, can’t cheat the Popsicle sticks until you can read! I love that the bunting displays all the fun things you have to look forward over the summer, it makes me happy every time I glance it’s way…that could just be the effect bunting has on me in general though, teeny colorful flags strung about is a pretty happy bit of decor.

Summer Bucket list Bunting

Rather than removing the activities from the bunting or crossing them out as we get to them, we pin a picture of us doing the activity over the triangle.

Pin photo’s to the bunting to indicate that you’ve crossed an activity off the list.

As the summer moves on our bunting becomes a photo log of summer fun. When the leaves fall and you reluctantly remove your summer list (in favour of a fall bucket list maybe?) you can slip the photo’s into a small photo album.

When you are ready to dismantle your bunting in the Fall you have a ready made photo book of your summer fun.

I’ve had a request to share the activities we’ve included in our bucket list so I’ll be typing them up and posting them in their own post tomorrow.