When we were growing up, summer meant being outside! We played "night games" outside every evening with neighborhood friends, we rode our bikes and rollerblades much farther across town than my mom ever knew, we made mud pies, built forts, slept outside in sleeping bags, put on backyard plays, and got lost in a good book under the shade of a tree. However, I feel like these days its too easy to get distracted with technology and television and kids are forgetting the business of being kids.
That's why, one of my mom's "Summer Magic" units is called "Back to the Days of Pooh" - a week dedicated to doing activities that bring children back to the magic of childhood summers before video games, TV, smart phones, gaming devices and so on. During this week, technology is turned OFF and we take part in good old-fashioned fun and games while my mom emphasizes the importance of having fun and creating fun without needing to be entertained by an external source.
So explore, play, laugh, use your imaginations, get dirty, go barefoot, feel the sunshine on your face, get grass stains on your pants. Go back to the days and ways of your own childhood and remember what it is to TRULY be a kid!
"That's the real trouble with the world, too many people grow up. They forget. They don't remember what it's like to be twelve years old."
Walt Disney
Here are some of the activities and treats that take us "Back to the Days of Pooh":
PLAY A GAME OF CROQUET
VISIT A REAL FARM
Visit a Real Farm for good old-fashioned fun like milking cows, feeding ducks and chickens, petting bunnies, riding on tractors, and above all... being outside!!
Just a couple minutes from our house is a historic Ranch. It was one of the first settlements in this area, dating back to 1885. It was fun to look around and see what a homestead ranch looked like in those days. My son especially loved chasing all the peacocks :)
PLAY OUTDOOR GAMES:
SIDEWALK CHALK
HOPSCOTCH
CAT'S CRADLE
BUBBLES
BUBBLES
CHINESE JUMP ROPE
MAKE and EAT OLD-FASHIONED GOODIES
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During this week, my mom always shares with us old-fashioned treats that were popular during her childhood. It's fun to learn what candies and desserts she liked as a child like Twinkies, whoopie pies, and licorice filled with pixie sticks (bite off one end of a rope of licorice and pour a pixie stick into it). I decided to take it even more old-school and make my great-grandma's Sour Cream Cake, something my grandma loved as a little girl. She likes to tell us about how her mother would frost this warm cake with whipped cream made from the milk of their very own dairy cows. It would literally melt in your mouth, she said.
I had to use store-bought whipping cream, but it was still so delicious! And fun for my little boy to try his Great Great-grandma's recipe.
PLAY A GAME OF JACKS
HAVE AN OLD- FASHIONED ICE-CREAM SOCIAL
My mom still has all her grandkids over for an ice-cream social during her "Back to the Days of Pooh" week. She serves us a variety of flavors of ice-cream with every topping you can imagine, and lets each grandchild make their own. My husband also decided it'd be fun to take our little boy to Dairy Queen for an ice-cream Dilly Bar. One of his favorite childhood memories is going to get one of these with his dad and it was fun for him to share this memory with his own little boy.
"It's hard to explain how a few precious things
Seem to follow throughout all our lives
After all's said and done I was watching my son
Sleeping there with my bear by his side
So I tucked him in, I kissed him and as I was going
I swear that the old bear whispered "Boy welcome home"
Believe me if you can
I've finally come back
To the House at Pooh Corner by one
What do you know
There's so much to be done
Count all the bees in the hive
Chase all the clouds from the sky
Back to the days of Christopher Robin
Back to the ways of Christopher Robin
Back to the days of Pooh."
Return to Pooh Corner, by Kenny Loggins
