Memorial Day Weekend: get your play on!

Whee! Summer's here!

Monkeys are curious, playful, creative pranksters and they love to be active and let loose. Unfortunately, today's kids are lured into passive play options like TV, handhelds, iPods, and video games. With great weather on the horizon, Memorial Day is like a jungle call to all monkeys to get ready for ten weeks of fun, so we thought we'd give you some ideas for things to do this Memorial Day weekend.


Summer is a great time to both learn and teach.  Unstructured outdoor play gives kids not only physical exercise, but also teaches social skills like how to compromise, agree, forgive and make choices while enjoying the pleasure of shared experiences. Unplugged play teaches kids how to initiate conversation, cooperate and make new friends. Kids 8-14 can play outdoors with very little supervision, and summer is a time to let them stretch their wings and just. be. kids.

For list fanatics - or those get inspired by other people's lists, we hope to inspire you:


__ Get your water play on!  Buy your beach tag/sticker, find access to the local swimming hole, check your lawn sprinklers, or start making friends with a neighborhood friend with a pool.
__ Buy a bathing suit, new goggles and a pool/beach toy to start the season off with a fresh start.
__ Spend an hour finding all your summer toys, cleaning them off and throwing away the broken ones.
__ Toy box checklist: jump rope, bouncy ball, tennis racket/ball, sidewalk chalk, water balloons, frisbee, kite, remote controlled vehicles/aircraft, paper airplanes, 
__ Bike riders: inflate tires and check your bikes AND helmets! Everyone wears a helmet.
__ Scooters are great and there are all kinds of new types: three wheeled, kick strike, motorized - vroom!
__ Pledge to learn a new game: bocce, croquet, horseshoes: your backyard or on the go.
__ Tetherball isn't for the school playground anymore and is great exercise for all ages.
__ Creative, imaginative goofiness - there's no substitute!  Pledge time to let motivate your tween's imagination by handing them props and ideas: pirates, princesses, rock stars, just using stuff found around the house and yard.


Parents: most importantly, try and remember what it was like to be a kid in the summer with the gift of unscheduled, unstructured time.  Making backyard s'mores, keeping tabs on a nest of baby birds, discovering the neighborhood on my bike, and making a stick fort are still some of the fondest memories and they didn't cost a dime.  


Share your fondest summer play memory here, and we'll choose one randomly after the holiday weekend to win a cool "no-tie" water balloon set!