This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at KU chapter.
I still consider myself a child. For the past couple of summers, I have been a nanny for a family with four children. I’ve also been a babysitter since it was legal to leave a young preteen home with small children. I’ve learned a lot, but mostly to just have fun. I definitely have just as much fun as the kids when we play Uno, freeze tag, Legos, or whatever it may be. Soon enough, these childhood games and memories become “uncool” or “childish.” I’m here to remind you that these pastimes are and always will be timeless childhood memories.
- Coloring. From scribbles to stick people, coloring was one of my favorite pastimes as a child. Children can sit for hours coloring in their super cool coloring books with pretty princesses or superheroes. Whether they use crayons, markers, colored pencils, paint, or a combination of all, the fridge was the perfect place to showcase a kid’s artistic creativity. Nowadays, kids have their fancy iPads and tablets where they can just swipe their finger and have any color of the rainbow appear. Whether it’s on paper or on a screen, it is still art.
- Swinging/playing on a jungle gym. A neighborhood park was and still is the hangout place for kids. Running up and down the jungle gym and racing down the slides never gets old during the perfect summer day or night. And don’t forget the swings that make you feel like no one can stop you as you fly through the air. Sometimes you might need a little push to get started, but once you get going, there is no going back. Then, when you think that you can’t possibly get any higher, you jump off the swing and think for a few seconds about how you’re going to take flight.
- Sprinklers. Nothing says a hot summer day more than running through your Power Ranger sprinkler with your brothers (or was that just me?) Unfortunately, not everyone was as cool as me and my brothers were with our Power Ranger sprinkler, but running crazily through any type of sprinkler was essential if the pool was closed. If you weren’t a sprinkler runner as a child, maybe you were more of a water balloons or water guns kid. Both are completely acceptable on any hot summer day.
- Bubbles and sidewalk chalk. Both are yet another great pastime for children. There’s was something magic about mixing your bubble wand in the bubble liquid, blowing gently and forming beautiful bubbles that you could chase after or pop right away. Along with blowing bubbles, chalking up the entire driveway with doodles of whatever a kid’s imagination came up with is another great way to spend the day. My personal favorite thing to do as a child was having someone trace my body on the ground and then decorating myself (or just making my driveway look like a crime scene).
- Board games. Competition and skill are two main components for playing board games as a kid. And I guess having fun with your family and friends is important too. Ranging from Chutes and Ladders to Twister to even Go Fish, board and card games are a part of one’s childhood. Children learn valuable life lessons without even knowing it while playing almost any game. They learn how to spell with Scrabble, how to handle money and own property with Monopoly and how to be a surgeon with Operation.
- Freedom to eat. As a kid, eating food with your little chubby fingers and having food all over your face was definitely taken for granted. There comes a time in every kid’s life when one’s parents make the kid start using manners and stop eating like an animal. I personally think that the food tastes better with it all over your face, but society tends to think otherwise. These kids need to live it up while they have the opportunity, because even if they do get food everywhere, they also don’t have to clean up after themselves.