Spring break is coming soon–and if you’ll be home with the kids all week, you might be dreading it just a little bit! While it’s always fun to have more relaxed time with your kids without the pressure of homework and social engagements, a huge break in schedule like this can sometimes be hard.
With a little bit of planning, this can be a week that’s enjoyable, relaxing, but also engaging for you and your kids. You may not be able to go on a trip or spend a lot of money, but you can definitely make lots of memories with your kids with the help of Storage Wyoming!
Spend time cooking
Cooking is a life skill that we know it’s good for our kids to have, but often times there’s not a good meal to slow down and take the time needed to teach our kids how to follow a recipe or chop vegetables. Let this week of more relaxed days be one where you decide to teach your kids some basic cooking skills.
Peeling and chopping vegetables could definitely be at the top of your list. Teach them the difference between mincing, chopping, slicing, and cubing. Show them which veggies need to be peeled and which don’t. Plan a few dinners that include these vegetables so they can get practice throughout the week working with them.
Baking is another fun skill that kids love to do–and taste after it’s done! Teach your kids to measure out dry goods like flour and sugar, to beat eggs, and to fold wet and dry ingredients together. All of these things may seem like common sense to us, but we all had to learn them at some point!
Make spring cleaning fun
Find a few activities that can be made fun for the kids but can also help accomplish some tasks. Depending on the ages of your kids, some of these choices may be easier than others–and offer some type of motivation or reward for yourselves if you work hard together! Here’s some ideas that all ages can help accomplish.
- Wipe baseboards with damp microfiber cloths.
- Scrub grout with a toothbrush and baking soda paste.
- Find all the lightbulbs that need to be replaced, shop for the right ones, and install them together.
- Touch up the paint on the walls and baseboards throughout the house.
- Transfer all your DVDs and CDs to binder and toss the cases–we recently did this and it saves SO much space!
- Clean out and vacuum out the car.
- Open the windows and vacuum and wipe out the insides of the sills.
- Wash the air filters outside.
- Dust the tops of all the windows and doors.
- Cleaning out the shower and sink drains–use a Drain Snake and score some major gross points with the kids!
- Go through toys and clothes to purge/gather things for a spring garage sale–to encourage your children to let go of things they don’t play with anymore, let them know they can host their own sale and keep the money they make.
- Wash all the bedding, curtains, and slip covers that don’t get washed regularly–make a big trip to the laundromat and let your kids help with quarters and transferring to the dryers.
Volunteer
Spring break week is a great time to get the focus off your family and onto helping others. There are organizations that need help making sack lunches to provide to kids who depend on their school lunches during regular school weeks. You can pick up trash at a park on sunny days. Your kids could design a flyer, pass it out to the neighborhood, and collect old blankets and bedding to donate to an animal shelter.
Plan a few library trips
If the weather is bad during your spring break, plan to make some extended trips to the library. Kids can spend time browsing, reading first chapters of books to figure out if it’s something they want to borrow, and looking for new music. Most libraries offer special events during the week for kids, so check those out too!
Find local activities
There may be several local activities that you don’t normally take advantage of during the school year that would be perfect for spring break week! Bowling, thrifting, biking, hiking, and exploring can all be part of your spring break week! For locals, make sure to check out the Natural History Museum at Western Wyoming Community College!
Learn a new game or complete a new puzzle
Games are another thing that take a lot of time to learn–especially for young kids–and sometimes we don’t prioritize during the normal weeks. Take the time to teach your kids some new games–for younger ones, things like Uno, Crazy Eights, Battleship, Bananagrams, and Jenga are all fun choices! For older kids, Code Names, Pandemic, Sequence, Ticket to Ride, and Clue are all engaging and fun.
A big family puzzle can be another great option–set it up on the dining room table, and spend some time in the afternoons eating cookies and working on it together. You can even turn on an audiobook or some music to make the time even more engaging.
Some of these may not be a big hit with your family–and that’s ok! But, hopefully it will get your brain’s wheels turning to make some good plans for this upcoming spring break week with your kids.
If decluttering and organizing will be a part of the week, make sure to consider how a self storage unit could assist in reclaiming your home and the clutter that may have built up in it. Unused baby gear, family heirlooms, and extra furniture could all be taking up valuable space in your home, but may not be things that you’re ready to part with–that’s where a climate-controlled, guarded, affordable storage unit can help!
Give us at Self Assured Storage a call today to see how our experts can help you make the most of this spring break week and leave you with a house that’s ready for some serious spring cleaning and summer fun!
