For the last three summers in Italy, we've brought along activity books for Sofia and last year was Olivia's first activity book summer. The first year I picked up some books from Target's dollar bin sections, which if you don't browse there on a regular basis, you really should start now. Everything from stocking stuffers to favors for birthday parties. Anyway...The past two summers, Anthony picked the activity books up from a store near his work that for a couple dollars more, had better content especially as the girls get older. Our school also offers activity books for $11/book that while had good content, I wasn't willing to pay that for each girl this summer.
Being away from home for 7 weeks can definitely cause our girls to go into overdrive thinking that they have to be doing something vacation-y every minute of the day. Which is possible, but you'll get burned out pretty fast if you try. To avoid that, we try to incorporate a little bit of quiet, structured time into our days. I didn't force them to do it, not even once. The books were placed in a spot where they could be easily seen and reached by each girl, along with crayons, pencils, erasers and sharpeners. We talked about maybe trying to stick to a Monday-Friday schedule as the days where they could work in their activity books and not even think about them Saturday or Sunday.
Now were there some days during the week that we didn't do them at all? Of course. But you know what, the girls sometimes grabbed for their books on a Saturday or Sunday too. There were a few times where I had to mention them but really for the rest, the girls enjoyed going through them together.
A little bit of structure mixed in with a whole lot of beach, walks at the villa, time with friends and family, visiting other towns and even just hanging around the house playing with toys was a perfect way to spend 7 weeks.
Love this face - no activity book for you yet!
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