It’s been hot outside — or so I’ve been told. (I have icebergs floating in my veins from the deliciously body-numbing air conditioning at work. This morning I turned on my space heater so I could thaw. How pathetic.)

If the heat is heatin’ up and you want to have some cool-down fun with your grandchildren, grab some squirt guns and some sidewalk chalk.  Fill your squirt guns and head out to your driveway or sidewalk.

With the chalk, draw a bull’s eye on your sidewalk.  Give each ring in the bull’s eye a point value.  Have your grandchild stand five steps away from it and see if she can squirt the center of the bull’s eye.  Give her five chances to hit it and add up her points according to the ring in the bull’s eye that she hit.

Have her take three more steps away from the bull’s eye.  Give her five chances to hit the bull’s eye.  Add up her points.  Have one or two ‘prizes’ for her to choose from according to the points that she got. (The larger the prize the more points she needs to have made.)

You could do a couple of variations to this activity.  With the chalk, write the numbers from one through ten.  Give your grandchild simple addition or subtraction problems.  After she figured out the answer in her head, she is to squirt the ‘answer’ number with her squirt gun.

Write out the alphabet.  Give her words to spell.  She spells them by squirting the letters on the sidewalk.

Have her draw a simple picture (like the outline of a flower).  Time her to see how long it takes to wash the picture off the sidewalk by squirting it.  Have her do this two or three times to see if she can beat her time.

Grandma needs to have a squirt gun for this next activity.  Set two containers (plastic bowl or cup) a few feet away from you.  See which of you can fill your container with water by squirting the water from your squirt gun into it.

End your activity with a good old fashioned squirt gun water fight.  Then, sit on your porch and eat a popsicle.

What activities have you done with your grandchild to cool off during the hot summer heat?

We’re off to Bear Lake for our annual family reunion. The lake sits on the Utah/Idaho border.

Lake = water.

Weather forecast = rain.

Rain = more water.

Saturday’s temperature is supposed to be 77 degrees.  That’s not quite warm enough for me to get into the water.  But, I can play at the lake’s edge with the grandchildren which is fine with me.

Because I’ll be gone, I’m re-posting some water activities that I shared last summer.  I hope you have fun doing them with your grandchildren.  (And, I hope the weather is warmer where you are so that you will enjoy getting wet!)

Flotsam and Jetsam
We all know that flotsam and jetsam refers to stuff floating in water.  Right?  Good.  So, the idea behind this activity is to get a Ping-Pong ball to float in a plastic cup.

Divide your grandchildren into pairs.  Give one grandchild an empty plastic cup with a Ping-Pong ball inside.  She is now known as the “Great Cup Holder.”  Give the other grandchild a spray bottle filled with water.  This grandchild is the “Sharp Shootin’ Squirter.” Have them stand six feet apart.

On ‘go,’ the Sharp Shootin’ Squirters try to squirt enough water into their partner’s cup so that the Ping-Pong ball floats.  The first team to get their ball to float is the winner.  Then, switch so that the Great Cup Holder becomes the Sharp Shootin’ Squirter and the sprayer turns into the cup holder.  Again, see which team can be the first to get their Ping-Pong ball to float.

There’s only one rule:  if the team members get closer than six feet, they have to dump out the water in their cup and start over.  (You might want to have a large bucket for easy refilling of the sprayers.)

You might want to have a squirt bottle for every grandchild.  Before the activity, they can draw designs on the bottles using markers.  Then, they can take the squirt bottle home with them — or keep them at grandma’s house for their next visit.

Gentle Jumping
Drag out your long jump rope and paper cups for this activity.  Your grandchildren will take turns turning the rope for the other jumpers.  Each grandchild is given a cup full of water.  The object is for each one to run in, jump six times, and run out without spilling water from her cup.  The one with the most water left in her cup is the winner.

Soggy Jogging
Divide your grandchildren into two teams.  Give each team an old pair of loose fitting sweat pants and a bucket of water.  Place a lawn chair for each team about 15-20 feet away from the starting line.

On ‘go,’ the first person dunks the sweat pants in the bucket of water and puts them on.  She runs down to the lawn chair and once around it and back to her team.  She takes off the sweatpants and gives them to the next person in line.

The next person dunks the sweatpants in the water, puts them on, runs down and around the chair and back.  The winning team is the one who finishes first.

Water Ball
This game is easier to do with just 2 grandchildren — or you and one grandchild.

You’ll need several water balloons, a plastic bat, and a bucket full of water.  Decide who is the pitcher and who is the batter.

The batter stands by the bucket of water.  The pitcher stands several feet away with four water balloons.  The pitcher tries to toss a water balloon into the bucket of water.  The batter ‘defends’ the bucket by hitting and breaking the water balloon so it doesn’t land in the bucket.  The pitcher scores one point for every balloon that successfully lands in the bucket.

Switch positions.  The new pitcher (who has four water balloons) tries to throw the balloons into the bucket while the new batter tries to hit the balloons so they don’t land in the bucket.  Continue playing until you run out of water balloons or interest wanes.

Grandchildren love to play in water — whether in the tub, in the swimming pool, or in outdoor games.

I know that I’ve recently shared water ideas.  You need a few more, don’t you?  It’s still summer.  It’s still hot.

And I still have some ideas . . .

Suds Stand
Want a wet twist on the ol’ lemonade stand on the corner?  Try a scaled down car wash theme and do a ‘bike ‘n toy’ wash.  On a large poster board, design and color a bike wash sign.  Tape it to the handlebars of a bike. Get a huge bucket of sudsy water, plunk it down on the sidewalk outside grandma’s house, put the bike/sign nearby, and offer to wash bikes and toys.  You could wash them for a small fee — or for free.

If you don’t have any takers, have your grandchildren wash some toys from grandma’s toy closet or her sandbox.  They’ll have lots of wet, sudsy fun and keep occupied (and cool) on a hot summer day.

Water Tag
Gather up your grandchildren for an old fashioned game of tag — with a twist.  Give the person who is ‘it’ a cup of water.  When ‘it’ splashes water on another player, that player is now ‘it.’  You might want to have a bucket of water nearby for handy cup refills.

Water Balloon Catch
Cut away a section from a plastic milk jug leaving the handle and the lower part of the jug (as a catch receptacle).  Fill lots of water balloons with your nifty Water Bomb Factory.  (You do have one, don’t you?)  Then, play catch seeing how many times you can catch a water balloon with your milk jug mitt before the balloon breaks.  (You’ll want to make sure that the edges of your milk jug doesn’t have any rough sticky-outy points that could pop the balloon.)  You could also see how far apart you can stand and catch the water balloon before it breaks.

Super Soaker Squirt Ball
You will need a super soaker squirt gun for each person and one small inflatable ball.  Determine goal lines for each person/team.  The object is to move the ball across the goal line using only water squirted from the super soaker.  (No kicking or hitting the ball . . .)

Do any of you have other fun water activities that you have done with your grandchildren?

Yesterday, Grandma Susan commented on my post about ideas for water activities.  She lamented that it takes a L-O-N-G time to make water balloons.  I totally agree.  Totally.

I was about to commiserate with her when – TA DA – an idea flashed through my head.  Don’t others feel the same way?  Why hasn’t someone created a gizmo that easily and quickly fills water balloons?

Within a minutes, I found the most fabulous thing that is a MUST for all grannies:  A Water Bomb Factory!

You can find them on Amazon for $8.98 (with $3.98 shipping).  Or at Things You Never Knew Existed for $8.98.  (I don’t know how much shipping costs.)  Or at Pinch A Penny for $6.99.  (Shipping is free but handling is $8.99!)  Leslie’s Pool has them for $7.99 (with $8 for shipping.)  There might be other places with a better price or better shipping.  These are just two sites that I found in my quick search.

Watch the following video to see just how easy it is to fill and tie a water balloon.  Amazing.  Totally amazing!

That clinched it for me!  I am so going to buy one of these little fellows!