Today I want to write about Fun things to do with preschoolers and elementary age children.
Whether you’re raising your grandchildren or just spending time with them here some things that I like to do with my grands. I will list outside inside and special things for summer break.

Outside
Fun things to do outside. My grandkids like to go to the local park. We also have a small sandy beach and a splash pad. These make great places to go to burn off some energy on a beautiful day. We like to go to the lakefront and look for painted rocks we walk along the trail/Bike path in search of colored treasures. In our backyard we have a small sandbox that we can make castles and dig in. In the summertime we usually get a small pool for them to play in the kids love to play with water so we got what’s called a water table for the back porch. It’s a small table that holds water with a spinner and places to pour the water in and it comes out in other areas. On summer days we also like to go over to the pool. We have beach balls in the backyard they like to kick around. They also have bikes and Big wheels they like to ride along the sidewalk in front of the house.

Sidewalk chalk is great way to keep them busy while practicing their writing skills. They like taking the dogs for a walk and that’s great it wears them all out. They love playing in the dirt planting flowers vegetables or just making mud pies.

It’s fun to watch them get excited as the plants begin to grow. Bubbles are also a fun outdoor activity. When we move up north I can’t wait to try blowing bubbles in the freezing temperatures.

Things to do inside the house
These are everyday ideas and some ideas for rainy days. First I’ll start with crafting ideas. The old standby of coloring books and crayons is a wonderful thing to have on hand.

We also like to paint rocks so we can hide them well looking for rocks at the lake front. We like to finger paint and make pictures using our handprints and feet prints for presents. We have sand in many different colors to make sand art either in little plastic containers or we use it to glue on paper to make pretty decorations.

The kids love books with pictures they are wonderful for inside time. Sometimes we just look at them other times I read out loud to them which is one of the best things that you can do for a young child. Sometimes I let them turn the pages and tell me the story by the pictures this is another educational activity. Board games and yes they do have bored games for preschoolers. My grandson like to play A fishing game that’s magnetic letters and fishing poles once you get a fish you have to match it to the letter on your card, very educational. They have games like chutes and ladders , Candyland, Tic tac dog, ants in the pants, jumping monkeys connect four and lots lots more. You can find games online or at any toy store. They all love building with bocks, we have the soft foam blocks and wood scraps. Monkey is our main builder.

Play dough is a great thing for building fine motor skills you can use it to make shapes and letters you can use cookie cutters for animals ect. My little monkey’s favorite thing to do inside is puzzles he has wood puzzles and puzzles in boxes and puzzles in tins he has lots of puzzles he even has some that cover the floor. Now I don’t mean to be sexist but my little Sunshine enjoys dressing up playing with her dolls, having tea parties and playing with anything her brother has. My little monkey likes to play with his cars. race tracks, remote control trucks, dump trucks and the like.

All of them enjoy when I allow them to help me cook. They like to crack eggs, always do it in a separate bowl so you can fish the shells out before you add it to your cooking. They love to stir no matter what is in the bowl. There is a cookbook that we use that’s called cooking with preschoolers I believe I picked it up off Amazon which gives you lots of really easy recipes and Ways for them to help. Believe it or not another great thing that my preschoolers love to do is help clean. It may not be done well but at least it’s been done. They like to take the broom and a mop and think they’re helping. I’ll give them a dust cloth or a washcloth and they wash tables and dust the shelves, They help recycle and take out the trash sort the laundry and put it away. Not all playing is just playing a lot of it can be educational I can be ways to teach responsibility and can be beneficial.

Extra special things we have done with the grands is for birthdays we get bounce houses sometimes with a waterslide. They love that! We have taken them to Sea World where the were able to see, touch and feed the animals and fish. They got to ride a train and monkey even rode a roller coaster. We have now gone twice and are planning another visit. We also took them to the water park Aquatica. We also took them to Tallahassee museum its a park with an area kinda like a zoo. Speaking of zoo we did that too.

We have taken them to chuckle cheese a few times. We even took them on vacation to North Carolina where they got to stay in a hotel and go on an Army base twice. We stopped at a place called South of the border in South Carolina where we walked and shopped and saw neat things.
Some of the things they love are the animals that grow in water. They had a duck and an alligator that started off as eggs it took a week of them in water to get full size the kids loved checking every day to see if they changed.

The grands like playing with all sorts of toys and will do anything with Papa/Daddy. They love helping him or playing with him weather its wrestling, videos games, catch or just sitting on Papas lap to watch movies.
These are the things we do I would love to hear from some of you what you do with your grands please share in comments below.

Thank you for following along on my journey of raising these beautiful souls.

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