Having kids at home all summer is a challenge when you work, or when you have a heavy schedule to begin with. If your kids have group of friends they play with regularly, there are some things they can do besides going from house to house with enormous, undirected energy.

1) Depending upon ages, kids can gather do to art projects. Scholar markers and pencils can be used to fill coloring books, create greeting cards, do posters, and even create original games. With all the books on the market that demonstrate how to draw cartoon characters, it can be fun to create your own stories and illustrate them. If some in the group can draw well, and others can tell stories, it can be great creative effort--pretending to make a movie. First write the tale. Second illustrate the tale. Third, make some paper characters and act out the scenes.

2) Use Sharpie Stained to create your own original tee shirts and matching sneakers or caps. Older kids will enjoy using the cool brush tip to fill in large areas that become animal faces, anime, or wonderful and fun sayings. Or just make some crazy designs.    Play an instrument? How about a pic on the tee shirt with some musical notes? It's fun and the end product lasts. Bundles of tee shirts can often be had unexpensively from shops that serve the marketing industry or print shops.

3) How about adopting a child in another country and have light fund raisers like lemonade stands to raise money to send for clothing. They can take pictures with their phones and write letters to a child in need. Many orphanages are funded in the states, and the children begin to learn English along with their original language, so those letters are a way to practice speaking and to connect with others.

4) Set up white boards so everyone in the group can color their own idea. Have contests to see who can draw the best butterfly or tell the best short story, or even play word games that prepare them for the coming school year's vocabulary lessons. Learning to spell words and use them in sentences that are crazy and fun can be attached to making cupcakes that will be prizes.

5) Do you have a park nearby? How about a group trip to see what wildlife is there. Turtles in ponds, birds and squirrels in nests, dogs at the dog park, and other park inhabitants can be fun to see, fun to photograph, and fun to draw. Learning to write short stories about personal experiences is great preparation for coming school assignments. Or, a fish in the water can be a lead character in a fantasy book about life in the pond. Use different colors to write each part of the story, and then draw using all the colors.

There are so many ways to keep kids growing, learning, and relaxing while having fun that it's hard to count them all. Remember, our site is all about using writing instruments for everyone who wants to make a mark. Poster paper, writing pads, drawing and sketching books are all around locally, but many of the art and writing products are only found here. Have a good time looking through our pages and dreaming up fun things to do.