Many years ago, I made a summer bucket list for like five years in a row, except I never ever called it a bucket list. But it was the same thing.
I decided to make a bucket list for each season starting with winter in 2017. You can grab my winter bucket list for kids and families here. Now that spring is right around the corner, I am posting my spring bucket list.
As a full-time working mom and a mom blogger, I have to be really intentional about spending time with my kids. If I'm not intentional, our days and weeks would slip by, and I wouldn't have spent any real time with them.
I mean, we're in the same house, maybe even in the same room, but I'm writing on my blog or talking to their dad or working at my job, and they're watching tv or playing Legos or Barbies or something else. On their own.
If I'm not careful, my kids and I can lead these parallel lives, and I don't take the opportunity to pour into them at all. Like I said, I have to be intentional about it.
Hence the need for a bucket list for every season of the year. We can choose from the items on the list when we have little pockets of time or as opportunities come up. It will give us a base, a starting point from which to make our time together fun and rewarding.
As an aside, I am super intentional about scheduling fun. I make sure we do something fun together, all four of us, every single week, no matter what. (Well, unless they go on a weekend trip. Then I plan something fun for just me and Joe.) I have it written into my planner, I save money for it out of every paycheck, and I almost always make it happen.
I have read studies that say children make incredible memories on vacation. We do take vacations, usually one big one per year with a couple of weekends away.
But what if we can build those incredible memories in little bites sprinkled all throughout the year? Would that not add up in their little memory banks to a childhood well spent? I sure hope so.
If you're looking for a way to get your kids to take charge of their own entertainment, click over to this post where I have created a unique, card-based list of 150 of the best screen-free activities for elementary kids up through teens.
This year, I made a Spring Bucket List for the four of us. Here's what's on it:
Time bound items:
- Start a new St. Patrick's Day tradition.
- Play Minute to Win It for St. Patrick's Day.
- Read a St. Patrick's Day book.
- Have a rainbow scavenger hunt.
- Make a rainbow craft.
- Make a mosaic rainbow.
- Grow a good luck plant.
- Observe Lent.
- Go to an Easter Egg Hunt.
- Celebrate Passover with a special seder.
- Color Easter eggs
- Make an Easter Egg craft with buttons.
- Start a new Easter tradition.
- Make the kids hunt for their Easter baskets.
- Bring the Easter story to life.
- Hide plastic Easter eggs in the backyard.
- Make egg geodes.
- Make a Mothers' Day present
- Look for baby birds
All spring items:
- Plant a vegetable garden (raised bed tutorial here)
- Plant flowers
- Smell flowers
- Pick a bouquet
- Press flowers
- Start a new habit
- Go for a bike ride
- Play at a park
- Go to a festival
- Start a compost pile
- Shop at a farmer's market
- Visit a petting zoo
- Fly a kite
- Go on a picnic
- Sign up for a CSA
- Read a picture book together in the hammock
- Start a chapter book read aloud
- Have a living room dance party
- Have a campfire in the backyard
- Host a cook out
- Make dirt pudding
- Bird watch
- Wash the car
- Have a no screens day
- Bake cookies
- Volunteer together
- Visit a museum
- Visit a farm
- Try a new restaurant
- Jump in puddles
- Pop some popcorn and have a movie night
- Get up early and go to breakfast (hopefully with Pappy like I used to do years ago)
- Learn archery
- Make a fairy garden
- Raise and release butterflies
- Raise and release ladybugs
- Take a walk around the lake
- Send a postcard
- Plan a weekend getaway
- Teach the kids badminton
- Have a family game night
- Write a handwritten note to a friend
- Look at old photos
- Make a blanket fort
- Do a random act of kindness
- Make a big pot of cheeseburger soup on a chilly day
- Feed the birds
- Train for a 5K
- Find some chicks and pet them
- Catch tadpoles
- Have a poetry tea party
- Go to a paint your own pottery studio
- Rent a canoe or rowboat
- Go bowling
- Spend a day at the zoo
- Dig for worms and...
- Go fishing
- Play frisbee
- Shop at a flea market
- Plan a camping trip for summer
- Watch the sunrise
- Watch the sunset
- Play outside
- Draw on the driveway with sidewalk chalk
- Learn to skip rocks
- Draw in a nature journal
- Play in the rain
- Pick strawberries
- Eat strawberry shortcake
- Go out for ice cream
- Paint kindness rocks and leave them somewhere
- Blow bubbles
- Make homemade lemonade
- Make homemade limeade
- Visit a butterfly house
- Climb a tree
- Fly paper airplanes
- Make mud pies
- Make a flower garland
- Visit a professional garden
- Write a letter and send it through the mail
- Eat al fresco
- Visit the grandparents
- Make gratitude journals
- Pick dandelions
- Try a new recipe
- Make a new craft from my Crafts to Make board on Pinterest
- Play hide-n-seek
- Go to a garage sale
- Make Jello jigglers
- Have a nature scavenger hunt
- Bake & decorate a cake
- Make dream catchers
Grab the free Spring Bucket List for Kids printable below.
If you're looking for a way to get your kids to take charge of their own entertainment, click over to this post where I have created a unique, card-based list of 150 of the best screen-free activities for elementary kids up through teens.
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