Summer
Activities & Crafts
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Summer
Fun
For
many, summer means fun in the sun. The kids are out of school,
adults are on vacation and it's time for outdoor activities like
riding bikes and hosting barbecues. However, the U.S. Consumer
Product Safety Commission (CPSC) warns that summer also is the
time of year consumers are most likely to be injured.
More
than 3.7 million consumers went to hospital emergency rooms with
product-related injuries in June, July and August 2001. During
that summer, about 836,000 more consumers suffered product-related
injuries than in January, February and March 2001. To avoid becoming
a 2002 statistic, CPSC advises everyone to enjoy summer activities
with safety in mind.
CPSC
Summer Safety Tips
One of the best ways to stay safe this summer is to wear a helmet
and other safety gear when biking, skating and skateboarding,
and when riding scooters, all-terrain vehicles, and horses. Studies
on bicycle helmets have shown they can reduce the risk of head
injury by as much as 85 percent.
Use layers of protection to prevent a swimming pool tragedy. This
includes placing barriers completely around your pool to prevent
access, using door and pool alarms, closely supervising your child
and being prepared in case of an emergency.
Never bring charcoal grills indoors. Burning charcoal produces
deadly carbon monoxide.
When cooking outdoors with a gas grill, check the air tubes that
lead into the burner for any blockage from insects, spiders, or
food grease. Check grill hoses for cracking, brittleness, holes,
and leaks. Make sure there are no sharp bends in the hose or tubing.
If you ever detect a leak, immediately turn off the gas at the
tank and don't attempt to light the grill until the leak is fixed.
Newer grills and propane tanks have improved safety devices to
prevent gas leaks.
Make sure your home playground is safe. Falls cause 60 percent
of playground injuries, so having a safe surface is critical.
Concrete, asphalt or packed dirt surfaces are too hard. Use at
least 9 inches of wood chips or mulch.
Use softer-than standard baseballs, safety-release bases and batting
helmets with face guards to reduce baseball-related injuries to
children.
If you are a soccer mom or dad, beware that movable soccer goals
can fall over and kill children. Make sure the goal is anchored
securely at all times and never allow anyone to climb on the net
or goal framework or hang from the cross bar. Remove nets when
the goals are not in use.
To prevent serious injuries while using a trampoline, allow only
one person on at a time, and do not allow somersaults. Use a shock-absorbing
pad that completely covers the springs and place the trampoline
away from structures and other play areas. Kids under 6-years-old
should not use full-size trampolines.
Don't allow a game of hide-n-seek to become deadly. CPSC has received
reports of numerous suffocation deaths involving children who
crawled inside old cedar chests, latch-type freezers and refrigerators,
iceboxes in campers, clothes dryers and picnic coolers. Childproof
old appliances, warn children not to play inside them.
If summer plans include camping and you want heat inside your
tent or camper, use one of the new portable heaters that are equipped
with an oxygen depletion sensor (ODS). If oxygen levels start
to fall inside your tent or camper, the ODS automatically shuts
down the heater before it can produce deadly levels of carbon
monoxide (CO). Do not attempt to use alternative sources of heat
or power to warm a tent or camper. Traditional camping heaters,
charcoal grills, camping lanterns, and gas generators also can
cause CO poisoning.
Install window guards to prevent children from falling out of
open windows. Guards should be installed in children's bedrooms,
parents' bedrooms, and other rooms where young children spend
time. Or, install window stops that permit windows to open no
more than 4 inches. Whenever possible, open windows from the top
- not the bottom. Also, keep furniture away from windows to discourage
children from climbing near windows.
Summer also means yard work. When mowing, keep small children
out of the yard, and turn the mower off if children enter the
area. If the lawn slopes, mow across the slope with the walk-behind
rotary mower, never up and down. With a riding mower, drive up
and down the slope, not across it. Never carry children on a riding
mower.
Keep
safe this summer and enjoy it!
Dandelion
Jewelry
Age: 5
and Up
Mess: Low
Material: Finally a good use for the wretched
dandelion weeds!
Instructions:
Get your child to pick 12 or so good strong long stem dandelions.
Carefully wrap one stem carefully around another and tie a knot.
you can make bracelets, necklaces, and more. This activity is
hard for younger ones but you can make the jewelry for them.
Sun
Cards
Age: 4
and Up
Mess: Low
Material: Construction paper, small objects and
scissors
Instructions:
Take the construction paper and fold it in half. Cut some shapes
and letters out of another prices. If the card is for someone
cut the letters of their name out. Put the objects on it such
as keys, small toys and pendants along with the words you cut
out on top of the construction paper. Place the paper directly
in the sun and by the end of the day, the paper will be faded--except
the areas covered by the objects or pieces of paper.
Summer
Collage
Age: 4
and Up
Mess: Medium
Material: Magazines,
travel brochures, glue and construction paper
Instructions:
Have your child cut pictures of things that remind them of summer.
Foods, camping, sailing, summer sports, and swimming and then
glue them onto the paper to make a summer collage.
Sandy
Colors
Age: 4
and Up
Mess: High
Material: Non
toxic paint, sand, paper, paint brushes
Instructions:
Help your child mix a small amount of sand into the paint to give
it a textured look and feel. On a piece of paper let them paint
with the textured paint.
Water Balloon Toss
Age: 4
and Up
Mess: High
Material: Water
Balloons
Instructions:
Have your child stand in front of you or another person and toss
the water balloons back and forth. Slowly step back from each
other and see how far apart you can get before the balloon explodes
water!
Soggy
Sponge Toss
Age: 3
and Up
Mess: High
Material: A
wet soggy sponge
Instructions:
This is a variation of the balloon toss and is a quick way to
get cooled off on a hot summer day.
Frozen
Footies
Age: 3
and Up
Mess: Medium
Material: Small
child's pool, couple bags of ice, an empty pale or bowl and some
lawn chairs.
Instructions:
Sit with your around the pool in a chair and when you say go they
need to catch as many ice cubes as they can with their toes and
put them in their bucket or bowl.
Water
Park Fun
Age: 3
and Up
Mess: High
Material: Swing set, sprinkler,
kiddies pool and a slide
Instructions: Turn
your backyard into a water park. Attach a small sprinkler to the
top of your slide to make it a water-slide, have the kiddies pool
at the bottom and add a couple of sprinklers in different around
the wing set.
Drip,
Drip, Drop
Age: 4
and Up
Mess: High
Material: a
plastic cup and water
Instructions:
This is actually a great party game if you have a birthday party
in the summer. Have the kids sit in a circle and instead of duck,
duck, goose..the child that is it walks around and drips a tiny
bit of water on each head and then dumps the cup full on the person
who needs to chase them.
Sand
Art
Age: 4
and Up
Mess: High
Material: Construction
paper, sand, glue, cotton balls and crayons
Instructions:
Have your
child glue some sand to a piece of paper to create a beach scene.
Add cotton balls (or white paper) for clouds and colored paper
for the sun and beach umbrellas. Then draw people at the beach.
Writing
in the Sand
Age: 3
and Up
Mess: Medium
Material: Sand
and a shallow pan
Instructions:
Place
a thin layer on sand in the bottom of the shallow pan. Have your
child make designs, pictures and letters in the bottom of the
pan.
