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What fun summer plans do you and your family have this year? While you may have a trip planned, it’s likely that you’ll also have a lot of time at home, which is why a list of summer activities for kids comes in handy to help you keep the kids busy while home from school. Regardless of what activities you and the family decide to do this summer, protecting your skin is something you definitely want to remember – especially if you’re out in the sun a lot.

Eucerin suggests that you incorporate activities you can do in the shade this summer, to help balance out the amount of sun exposure and help keep your skin healthy. They sent my family a summer fun kit with ideas for having fun at home, including bubbles and one of our favorites: sidewalk chalk! You can see my girl had a blast creating sidewalk art, something she can do in the shaded area of our driveway or later in the day when the sun is not as intense.

The kit also included a jar with ideas for summer fun – dress up, build a blanket fort, and tell ghost stories are a few of the activities we think sound fun, but you can fill your own summer activity jar with various ideas that your family loves! If your activity is an outside activity, then Eucerin’s tips include wearing sunglasses to protect your eyes and applying sunscreen 15 minutes beforehand.

Eucerin Skin-Safe Summer Giveaway

We want you to have fun this summer, plus protect your skin and keep it healthy, so thanks to Eucerin, we’ll be providing one of you with a prize pack (similar to the one pictured above), which includes a sampling of Eucerin products, summer fun items, and a $125 Visa gift card! See giveaway details below.

How to Enter

Required entry: If you’d like to enter this giveaway for a summer fun gift pack and a $125 Visa gift card, simply leave a comment telling us how you plan to have fun this summer while protecting your skin.

Extra entries (optional):

Each of the following will count as 1 extra entry. You’ll need to leave a separate comment for each entry.

1. Follow @modernmami on Twitter.
2. Tweet the following (1 time only): Have a fun, skin-safe summer w/ @EucerinUS. Win a gift pack + $125 Visa gc from @modernmami! http://bit.ly/13CQ0ye #giveaway #SkinFirst
3. Receive post updates by subscribing to our RSS feed. You can do so either via email or through a RSS reader. Leave a comment saying you did so or are already a subscriber.
4. Write a blog post on your own blog sharing the details of this giveaway. Be sure to include a link back to this post. Leave a comment with your post link.

All entries must be in by Sunday, June 23, 2013 at 11:59 pm EST. You must be 18 or older and a U.S. resident. No purchase necessary. Remember to leave a separate comment for each entry. The winner will be chosen using Random.org and will be notified via email. (Please be sure to provide a valid email address with your entry.) Winner will have 72 hours to respond and claim prize, otherwise a new winner will be chosen. Prize will be provided and fulfilled by giveaway sponsor and modernmami™.com is not responsible for lost or damaged goods.

Disclosure: As a participant in the Eucerin Skin First Network, I received samples and compensation for my time and efforts in creating this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

All photos © Melanie Edwards/modernmami™

Photo: Dmitry Kichenko

My five year old will be starting Kindergarten this fall. She just completed pre-Kindergarten and since her preschool follows the same school calendar as the public schools, that means she has an actual summer off, just like all school-aged kids. This also means that she’ll be spending a lot of time at home and we need to figure out ways to keep her busy. She’s not the type of kid to sit still for too long, plus we don’t want her to waste away the summer and forget everything they did in pre-K this past year.

We’ve lined up a few activities for the summer that will help her keep busy, entertained, and should be fun. Here’s our plan.

5 Ways to Keep Kids Busy this Summer

1. Summer Reading Program

Our local library has a summer reading program for kids to keep up with their reading while out of school. They provide a reading list, a calendar for kids to mark off days they read, and a goody bag at the end of the program in exchange for a full calendar. Our library’s program is for ages 6-12, but I figure that since baby girl is reading well for her age, we can work on the books appropriate for 6 and 7 year olds. She loves to read, so this is perfect for her and will get her extra excited about the books.

Photo: elvissa

2. Museums

At least one of our local museums is offering free admission on Mondays throughout the summer. I need to check with some of the other museums in the area to see if they have a similar offer, but have heard this is not uncommon. A visit to a museum is great for a) getting the kids out of the house, b) expanding their minds, and c) providing conversational topics.

Photo: aarongilson

3. Summer Day Camps

Luckily, baby girl’s preschool is hosting a summer day camp full of activities, weekly field trips, and a review of the pre-K curriculum they just completed. We’ve enrolled her for 5 weeks of camp this summer, though the weeks are spread out. Our local YMCA is also hosting a summer day camp with field trips, as well, so that may be something you can look into.

Photo: Richard Styles

4. Free Bowling or Other Recreational Activities

You may have already heard that AMF is offering two free games of bowling per day for kids 16 and under at over 200 locations in the US. I plan to take advantage of this offer a few times throughout the summer, though baby girl hasn’t quite mastered the art of bowling. She’ll still have fun, regardless, plus it’s an indoor activity – something that’s super important here in Orlando.

Last year, I also heard that some of the movie theaters had certain days of the week where they had free movies for the kids. That’s something else that would be fun and is also indoors.

Photo: Paul Sapiano

5. Swim Lessons

Believe it or not, our girl doesn’t yet know how to swim. This summer, we plan to fix that and have enrolled her in swimming lessons at our YMCA. Depending on how she does her first two weeks, we’ll see if we enroll her in further lessons.

The weeks that we have none of the above activities planned, such as this first week off from school, we are keeping her busy with continuing to write in her pre-K journal, reading, visits to abuela’s house, workbooks, and of course, playing with the various toys she owns. It’s sure to be a fast summer and before we know it, we’ll be preparing for the first day of Kindergarten.

How do you plan to keep your kids busy this summer?