Our Summer "Leap List"

School is out this Friday and we are thrilled to have a bunch of days to do whatever we want!  There are many things that we hope to do while we have this time off, and we seem to forget when summer is here, so we all made our own lists to help us remember. There are tons of adorable summer bucket lists out there, I chose to go with a leap list because I like the idea of "leaping" into the next school year.

To get ready for our Leap List making, my husband and I cut LOTS of lily pads out of green poster board, and cut out 4 ponds from blue paper.  Each of us got our own pond, maybe we will have to make one for Baby Girl next year!

We gathered in the family room on Sunday night and made our lists.  We had so much fun doing this, and everyone seemed deep in thought as we worked.  

 My three year old came up with some excellent ideas.  He told me what to write down on his lily pads and he glued them to his pond.  He had fun coloring and adding some stickers too.

My kindergartner wrote down his ideas all by himself.  I was so proud of him! 

When we were done with our lists we each added a frog, and then shared our ideas with everyone.

My husband came up with some of my favorite ideas, but sleeping through the night might not get crossed off of his list this summer!  Baby Girl still likes to wake us up.  

Scroll down to the bottom of this post if you would like to see our full Leap Lists!

I grabbed Five Green and Speckled Frogs illustrated by Constanza Basaluzzo off of the shelf after making our Leap Lists.  This is such a fun book!  The illustrations that go along with the lyrics of the song are adorable!  There is no shortage of activities out there to go along with Five Green and Speckled Frogs, but I was looking for something simple to keep my three year old busy for a little bit before nap time.  This is what I came up with.

My son and I gathered up 5 frogs to play with as we "sang" our book.  Each time a frog jumped in the pool in the book, we took one off of our log (a small stick), and made it jump in the pool.  Then we would count how many were left.

My son could barely wait to put the last frog in the cool pool.  He asked if we could warm the water!

After we read the book twice, he started to add things to his frog pool.  He started with rocks, then leaves.

He wanted flowers too, so we took some of my Mother's Day flowers that we still have and added those to the pool.

So simple and so much fun!

If you made it all the way down here to the end of our post, WOW!  Here are our Leap Lists!

Kindergartner's Leaping into 1st Grade List

Catch Lighting Bugs

Go to the Zoo

Go Down the Blue Slide

Play Outside

See the Tadpoles

Go on a Picnic

Go to the Pool

Go Fishing

Go to the Park

Get a Lollipop

See the Fireworks

Get Cotton Candy

Plant Flowers

Three Year Old's Leaping into Preschool List

See Big Waves

Play Beach Ball

Go to the Yellow Park

Build a Sand Castle

Play in the Sprinkler

Mommy's Leap List

Run on the Beach

Make Lemonade

Watch Fireworks

Catch Lightning Bugs

Go on a Bike Ride

Read Under a Tree

Throw Water Balloons

See the Insect Exhibit

See the Tree House Exhibit

Play Frisbee

Ride in the Water Taxi

Go Down the Blue Water Slide

Daddy's Leap List

Have a Root Beer Float

Go to a Baseball Game

Go Fishing

Play Miniature Golf

Sleep Through the Night (I wish him luck with this one)

Go to a Carnival

Throw the Kids in the Pool

Go to the Movies

Run in a Race

Cook on the Grill

Rent a Paddle Boat

Play a Round of Golf with BoPa

Check out our Facebook Page for more fun book ideas and activities!

Of course, we can add to these lists anytime we want.  We will just need to cut out some more lily pads.  We are hanging our pictures up in the hallway upstairs so we can keep track of everything that we do this summer.  I love the ideas that the kids had.  They really just want to spend their summer at the pool and in the backyard!  Sounds good to me!  I think the Leap List may become a new tradition!