A Summer Celebration: End of School

Last Friday was Miss T’s last day of home school. In normal times, at her real school, she would be running around with her friends at kermesse, a summer celebration of games and entertainment to mark the end of the school year.

Since Miss T had worked so hard, and since there was no kermesse this year, we held one in our yard on Sunday, in conjunction with Father’s Day.

Planning your Summer Celebration

With just a little planning you can set the stage to turn a Sunday afternoon into a special event.

• Make your space festive with helium balloons, if you have a supplies leftover from a previous party.
• Put up signs and banners to announce your celebration.
• Get out the face paints. Miss T painted her little brother’s face, while her parents painted hers.

Take out all your kitchen utensils for water play, for another fun summer activity.

• Purchase small game prizes–anything from temporary tattoos, to jars of bubbles, small balls, or small candy will do. Our hit was individually packaged foam glider planes. They come 36 to a pack but we gave out just a few per child–a glut of prizes diminishes their value. We’ll used the rest for another time.
• Plan the order of your games and the order of the prizes you will distribute. I found that once the kids received their gliders, they were distracted–they just wanted to drop everything to make them fly. Best to give these last.

Games for your Summer Celebration

Here are some games we played that worked for the seven- to four-year-old set.

Bean Bag Toss: Trace circles from various-size plates on cardboard (I used the back of a flip chart). Lay out small, individually-wrapped candy on each circle; kids need to land the bean bag in the circle to win the prize.

Here’s how to make your own bean bags.

Instead of candy, consider small toys as prizes. Or easier yet, loose change.

You can also number the circles and count points to win prizes. Or, instead of drawing circles, set out plates and bowls of different sizes.

Spoon Race: This oldie is still fun for kids. With lockdown scarcity, I refused to waste any eggs, so we used two small lemons from our tree, instead.

When kids are a few years apart, as ours are, create handicaps to keep the games competitive, such as having the older one take an extra lap around the course, or having to hold the spoon out to the side.

Parents and grandparents also took turns playing against each other; this is a good game to have relays with adults and kids together.

Fishing: Make a fishing pole using a cardboard wrapping paper tube or a yardstick for the rod, and a length of yarn for the fishing line. Tie on a binder clip for the hook.

Use an existing barrier (for us, our garden wall) or make a blockade from boxes so the child can’t see the other end of the fishing line. Assign one person to be on the other side to fasten the “fish.”

The child drops the fishing line over the barrier. The person on the other end clips on the “catch.” Be sure to give the line a tug to mimic the fish biting.

You can hook on a small prize each time the child fishes; I chose to give only one better prize at the end of the fishing expedition.

For their early attempts, I sent up everything from a sock, to a crumpled sheet of paper, to an empty toilet paper roll, telling the kids that the river was very polluted–to build anticipation for their reward.

Other Games Ideas

We stopped at three games, plus the cornhole set that the family brought with them.

Here are some other games that are easy to prep:

• Go “bowling” with plastic bottles and bean bags.
• Set up an obstacle course if your yard is large enough.
• Hold airplane races with foam planes, to see whose goes the farthest or the fastest; you can also give style points.
• Google “children’s outdoor games” for more ideas.

Make sure you involve the whole family, either cheering for the kids or joining in the fun.