Cori’s Summer List to Help Kids Beat the Boredom
A little about Cori.
Cori grew up as an only child whose parents had a firm policy: they would not entertain her. So she entertained herself. She spent entire summers in the backyard figuring things out on her own, and somewhere along the way she became obsessed with a simple idea: if you practice something enough, you can teach yourself to do almost anything.
One summer, she decided to learn to juggle with tennis balls. She just went outside and did it until she could. Another summer, she begged her parents for a unicycle. They got her one and she spent all summer teaching herself to ride it. Then she taught herself to juggle while riding! Later, she picked up a soccer ball and spent summer after summer working on foot juggling until she could do it over 1,000 times in a row.
She still believes it. Boredom is the beginning of something. Here are some ideas to get kids started.
01: Write a letter on actual paper.
Pick someone they haven’t talked to in a while: a grandparent, an old friend, a cousin. Stamp it, mail it, and wait for something to come back.
02: Start a collection of something weird.
Rocks, bottle caps, pressed leaves, interesting sticks. The weirder the better. Name it. Keep a count. See how far it gets by September.
03: Make up a game and teach it to someone.
Invent the rules, give it a name, write the official instructions if they want. Then rope in a sibling or neighbor and play it.
04: Read something just because it looks interesting.
Not for school. Not for a report. Walk a library shelf and pick something based entirely on the cover. Let it be the wrong choice sometimes.
05: Build something out of whatever’s around.
Cardboard, tape, string, sticks from the yard. No kit or instructions. Give them a challenge and get out of the way.
06: Keep a summer log.
Not a feelings journal. Just a record. What happened, what they ate, what they noticed. A sentence or two is fine. By August it’ll feel like a real document.
07: Learn one thing they’ve always been curious about.
How do planes stay up? Why do some bugs glow? Let them pick the rabbit hole and go down it. Books, videos, wherever it leads.
08: Cook or bake something start to finish.
Pick a recipe, gather what they need, and make it themselves. Mess included. Older kids tackle dinner. Younger ones can own breakfast.
09: Pick a skill and practice it until you can actually do it.
Juggling, a card trick, keepie uppies, a handstand, a new knot. It doesn’t matter what it is. Pick something that seems just out of reach and go outside and do it until it isn’t.
10: Do one thing that scares them a little.
Introduce themselves to someone new, try out for something, attempt a harder bike trail. Small brave things add up.
What did your kid teach themselves this summer?
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