Let the summer adventures begin!

1. Large Cardboard Boxes are perfect for making everything from castles to cars. Check your local appliance stores for their “throw a ways”.

2. Go to your local library for children’s reading day. Be sure to check their bulletin boards for special children’s events during the summer.

3. Plant something. This is a simple way to teach your child to care for a living thing. Use recycled plastic containers and poke some holes in the bottom. Hint: Beans grow the fastest.

4. While watering your lawn, water your children also. Let them run in the sprinklers.

5. Create a rubber band and pencil crazy bot. Use two unsharpened pencils and wrap rubber bands around the center. Twist the pencils lengthwise against each other (like a propeller). Set on a flat circle and let the jumping begin.

6. Home Depot Kids Workshops are free to children. They are offered one Saturday per month and will teach your child to build anything from a race car to a flower pot.

7. Have a paper airplane show. Teaching your child how to make a paper airplane is a childhood rite of passage. If you can’t remember how, there are numerous websites that offer their idea of “the best “.

8. Check out your local tide pools. In Hawaii we have the unique luxury of going to the beach almost daily if we choose to. But tide pools along the Waianae coast are perfect for little children. They can enjoy the sand and water without fear of waves or it being too deep. And they may even see some aquatic life as well.

9. Paper cup and string telephones are a great way to have secret communications. Poke tiny holes into the bottom of two paper cups and string a long length of light weight string though the holes. Tie them off. Now stretch the string as far as it will go and whisper secrets to each other. Try bending the string around corners and under doors.

10. Create a Shadow Theater by hanging a white (or light colored) sheet between two posts or trees. Make sure that the sun is to your back and begin acting out your favorite story. The audience on the other side will only see your shadows.