[SPEAKER_01]: Christian parenting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you searching for the perfect gifts to celebrate that special dad and the special grad in your life?
[SPEAKER_00]: We are thrilled to bring back the Christian parenting moms, dads, and grads gift guide.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mother's Day is done, so we're going to focus on the dads and the grads.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this year's edition is our best one yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whether you're honoring an awesome devoted dad, which is next weekend, or an inspiring grad, which this is the time for all those parties we just had ours last weekend.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've got you covered with meaningful gifts they'll truly love.
[SPEAKER_00]: From Bibles and Study Tools to Encouraging Books, your guaranteed defines something special for everyone on your gift list this summer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Visit ChristianParenting.org forward slash gifts to explore the 2026 dads and grads gift guide today.
[SPEAKER_00]: The link is also in the show notes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to today's best of episode of Little by Little Home School podcast, I am Lee Nguyen.
[SPEAKER_00]: and we are having a good time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've heard from many of you are saying I'm enjoying having like these little reruns and so I'm actually having fun finding best episodes to share with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've been focusing on the summer right now and I think it's just it's been good.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's been good for me as a reminder and for many of you as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm glad that you are here for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is such pressure in our society to create an over-the-top experience for
[SPEAKER_00]: the fear of missing out is real.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what if your children could have an amazing summer that filled them and you up?
[SPEAKER_00]: One that was reminiscent of an 80s in 90s childhood but with a 21st century twist.
[SPEAKER_00]: Does that appeal to you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or maybe you're just intrigued and needs more ideas in your arsenal for the summer.
[SPEAKER_00]: No matter the reason you clicked on this episode, I want to share the four favorite things that my kids and I did each summer that we now look back on with some very fond memories.
[SPEAKER_00]: grab that icy cold drink and get ready for your brain to be full of ideas because of this episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: This one originally aired two years ago in 2024 and I think it's very appropriate for now and I'm seeing more and more parents.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm seeing all this like 90s moms and 90s childhood and the 90s butter mom and everything on social media.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's take a look back and see what I shared two years ago and I'm pretty sure I'm gonna stick to what I said then.
[SPEAKER_00]: So enjoy this episode today.
[SPEAKER_01]: More and more families are wanting a simpler life.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've seen the rat race.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've been a part of the rat race, and maybe even if you or your husband's to have take you out of the home a little bit to the rat race, we really want to insulate and protect our children so that they don't feel that.
[SPEAKER_01]: The amount of times that I have heard kids talking about being anxious, I'm just, it just happens to me and I know that that probably would sad in you as well and you want just a more simpler life and this definitely applies to your summer break.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are lots of summer episodes that I have done.
[SPEAKER_01]: this year and then the past two summers and I will link a bunch of those in the show note so that you can just go ahead and binge listen to a bunch of summer episodes so that you can the rest of the summer because I know that you are on summer break right now so that if you are feeling a little overwhelmed you can get over that overwhelm and really have a more intentional summer for the rest of your summer break.
[SPEAKER_01]: So like I said, my childhood in the summer, let me describe it a little bit to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: It included a lot of running around our neighborhood with our neighbor friends.
[SPEAKER_01]: It included a lot of play, mostly outside.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was kind of one of those basically, all of the parents would put the kids outside in the morning and say, you're not coming back in until dinner.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, there were some bathroom breaks that needed to happen, and we would run to each other's houses, and whoever's house they were at, that mom was in charge of making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
[SPEAKER_01]: I might find some popsicles, handed out the door to us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just that kind of stuff, but we would just run and play.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember recreating and really enjoying little house in the prairie.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I was, Laura Engels.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you thought you were Laura Engels, I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was, no.
[SPEAKER_01]: But recreating that playing little house in the prairie, playing Wonder Woman, I had the undergarments.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll say the underwear and undershirt, and I found an old shirt of my dad's and a twirl, and I think maybe I had some glasses, I don't know, maybe even made a wand, who knows?
[SPEAKER_01]: Who knows what I did, but recreating those couple of things little house and Wonder Woman and basically falling in bed exhausted at night, absolutely content and happy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, yes, times have changed.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are here now in 2024.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is not 1983 anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we can still have that nostalgic feeling and we can't necessarily recreate it completely.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we still have screens, we still have all of these other things we have.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so in my house now, I have air conditioning.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not that there wasn't air conditioning in 1983, but I did not have air conditioning in my house in 1983.
[SPEAKER_01]: We had some fans and windows open at night, and that is what you had.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we can enjoy, I think, I mean, I thoroughly enjoy the air conditioning, especially at night, so I can sleep comfortably.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm not saying I want to give that up, but there is kind of this
[SPEAKER_01]: push and pull and there's this tension that we have and you're probably feeling it and you just want to make things simple for your kids So they can fall into bed as well at night exhausted, but happy and content.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I have a feeling that you wouldn't mind feeling like that in the evening as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this list isn't purely as an 80s and 90s type of less, but it's pretty close.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's dive in.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, I had a really fun time putting this list together.
[SPEAKER_01]: I need to add the disclaimer that all of these things on the list, most likely, would not excite my children anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: They are 21, 19, and 16.
[SPEAKER_00]: Their idea of excitement is includes a lot more than just this.
[SPEAKER_01]: But when they were young, this thoroughly excited them, and made them happy and was enough.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when I say the four different things, what I have done is I have categorized all of these different ideas into four different categories.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm going to read the categories to you and then I'm going to go in and then tell you what is included in each of the categories.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the first category is ideas of things that we did outside and away from the home.
[SPEAKER_01]: The next one was outside and at home.
[SPEAKER_01]: The third category is inside away from home, and then the fourth category is inside at home.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, are you ready?
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you have those captions written down and you can scribble down some ideas underneath them, but I like to put things into certain boxes and certain categories, and that's why I labeled it as this.
[SPEAKER_01]: The first category, let's go back to that.
[SPEAKER_01]: outside and away from home.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's some ideas for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: How about just good old fashion playgrounds?
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I know playgrounds are a little bit different.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are all kinds of comedians and jokes and memes and all kinds of things about some of the playground equipment that we had in the 80s that are no longer at playgrounds.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have seen some videos who people have found some old playgrounds.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm talking specifically about the
[SPEAKER_01]: one playground toy that you could sit on in the middle or sit around and you could spin.
[SPEAKER_01]: And oh my goodness, that was a blast.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a totally fun time doing that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do not put me on one of those now.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will be way too dizzy.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you could survive that and hold on and not fall off, you were king or queen of whatever that, whatever that playground equipment was called.
[SPEAKER_01]: That would even remember.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think I know, I think you know exactly what I'm talking about.
[SPEAKER_01]: but just playgrounds.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are so many options now.
[SPEAKER_01]: There weren't as many options when I was growing up.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember taking my kids to a couple specific playgrounds that were much bigger.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this would have been it would have taken more of an effort to go to some of these to pack everybody up.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I always found that was best to get there.
[SPEAKER_01]: First thing in the morning when we were fresh, when maybe the playground was still in the shade, and the coolness of the morning was still there, and then they could just play for a few hours.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe have some lunch there, but get home early afternoon, put everybody down for naps, or head to their rooms for just some quiet time, put playgrounds were a lot of fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you can include that in inviting your friends, saying, hey, let's meet at
[SPEAKER_01]: XYZ playground on this day at this time and see who shows up and just have a really good time or sometimes I would just take my kids.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I didn't want any more complication or like we just need to get out of the house, let's just go to a playground and then sometimes we just went to a playground that was just around the corner, maybe just a couple of minutes drive.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think there were any that we could walk to but maybe where you live you might have something that you can walk to.
[SPEAKER_01]: Doesn't mean that every single time you have to go to a big one but
[SPEAKER_01]: It was fun to take the extra time to go to some of these big ones, and when you don't go to those as much, they're even more exciting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Another thing that we would do was maybe to go to...
[SPEAKER_01]: some splash pads, these were few and far between, but I think they are more prevalent now, but some of the playgrounds who went to had a little bit of a splash pad as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's just fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't necessarily have to worry about your kids in a pool.
[SPEAKER_01]: At that point, we can put them in there, bathing suits, grab some towels, and let them run around.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can go ahead and sometimes it can be really hot and just use the excuse of, oh,
[SPEAKER_01]: I need to kind of watch and follow along with the toddler, make sure they're okay, or go check on my kids, just so you can kind of walk through the mist a little bit, just to kind of cool off them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not so much that you're sitting there dripping wet, that might be a little weird, but I know that some of these flashbacks actually encourage parents to wear their rings, so whatever you feel comfortable with.
[SPEAKER_00]: Another thing that we would do outside and away from the home would be play dates.
[SPEAKER_01]: They could be at a playground, they could be at a park, where they could be at somebody's house.
[SPEAKER_01]: The last thing with the outside in the way from home is that some years we got pool memberships and that was a lot of fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: We went to a pool that had a bunch of our friends from church and those families all went as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was, well, for me, at that point, it was probably a little bit of a drive by about 25 minutes away, which is maybe far or not far, but when you have three kids, you get to pack everything up, along with sex, along with lunch, everything that you need for the pool, and then also maybe get home in time for a toddler to take a nap, took a lot of effort.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so what I decided was we weren't going to go every single day.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I could get my money's worth by going every single day, but that was almost an hour of driving when you would include there and back.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I just kind of work out with the kids.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, look, we will go for one day during the week that is for most of the day.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we'll get back by mid to late afternoon.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would have a dinner in the crock pot, so it would be very easy to just kind of move into dinner time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I said we would go a second time during the
[SPEAKER_01]: Soon after lunch, I would probably pack a lunch on those days and they could just eat lunch in the car on the way home, so we could get home and not have to necessarily worry about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's go to the next category.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is outside, but at home, sprinklers, I mean, come on.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't really get any more 80s than a sprinkler.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we always would have a sprinkler.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just talk a hose up to it and let it go.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's sometimes, you know, you'll get that one kid that will pick up the sprinkler and be aiming at everybody and shooting everything with water that's not supposed to things that are on the porch that are, unlike a covered porch that aren't supposed to get wet and so yeah, you do run into that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But sprinklers were a lot of fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: Kids could cool down, they could run through the sprinkler and feel like they were doing something exciting, but you weren't anywhere else.
[SPEAKER_01]: You were just at home.
[SPEAKER_01]: Another thing of outside at home is to have some playout.
[SPEAKER_01]: Play dates.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can just invite friends over, just play outside.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have to be inside, maybe again.
[SPEAKER_01]: If it's warm and will super warm and hot in the summer, maybe set those up for in the morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: Another thing that we love to do is to read books in the shade underneath the tree.
[SPEAKER_01]: Pull out a blanket and maybe get a couple of snacks or some iced tea and sit underneath the book underneath the tree and just read some books.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody bring a book that you're reading and let's just sit and enjoy just being outside, but being in the shade a little bit cool and using our minds and just relaxing a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nothing that I love to do and that they all will tell you that they remember very much was making homemade popsicles.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can do them very simply.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had all kinds of different not gadgets, but different containers.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes I would do like smoothie pops and you could like squeeze them like maybe they're like a silicone kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there was the old fashion ones where you'd just pour in maybe some juice in you can pull the little thing out of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just those hard plastic containers, but we did a lot of homemade popsicles because then I could control the ingredients and keep the cost down.
[SPEAKER_01]: We also always had some type of fire bowl and we would a couple of times a month do s'mores around the fire bowl.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was a lot of fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: My kids thought it was fun to head back outside after dinner and of course, I mean, who wouldn't enjoy s'mores in extra marshmallows and running around and
[SPEAKER_01]: James and I would enjoy just kind of sitting there and just talking and enjoying our swores as well, but then they would just run around and play with their cars and who knows whatever big wheels and just having a really good evening, good quiet evening as a family.
[SPEAKER_01]: Add it on to that, would be things like catching lightning bugs.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, do you call them lightning bugs or fireflies?
[SPEAKER_01]: where I grew up, we call them lightning bugs, but they're the same thing, but that was always a fun highlight of the summer, the first evening that we would be out, and you could see them, and we catch them, and then release them.
[SPEAKER_01]: The last thing that we enjoyed doing outside at home was having a vegetable garden.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was a lot of fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, it wasn't always fun for all of my kids.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of them enjoyed it even more than others.
[SPEAKER_01]: and sometimes in some years, I had just a small, like a chicken wire fence.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was only 18 inches around, and I thought maybe we would have a lot of rabbits that would get into it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We didn't.
[SPEAKER_01]: Really, it kept the toddler out of the vegetable garden, which would have been fine for him to walk through it when things were fully grown.
[SPEAKER_01]: But in the beginning of the summer, when everything was very small, or he would have gone and thought he was waiting and pulled out everything that had finally
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's go into the third category, and that is inside activities, but away from home.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know how I can get hot.
[SPEAKER_01]: So hot, and if you live in a place that is extremely hot or very humid, you're looking for some things to do inside at sometimes during the summer season, but also maybe just for some of you might just be in the afternoon that just gets to be a bit more oppressive.
[SPEAKER_01]: We went to dollar movies.
[SPEAKER_01]: There would be movie theaters that would offer for maybe a dollar.
[SPEAKER_01]: You could come and be a family friendly movie now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Your idea of a friendly friendly movie might not be with their idea of a family friendly movie.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would pick and choose which ones I was okay with going with and just because sometimes they would say family friendly.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, hmm, that doesn't really qualify.
[SPEAKER_01]: As family friendly for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we would go to some of those dollar movies and it'd be nice in cool and air conditioned And it was a special treat because we did not go to the movies very often at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they thought this was fantastic to go So there are some theaters that used to
[SPEAKER_00]: Do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I've even heard of them around in my area.
[SPEAKER_01]: My kids are older.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't essay pay attention, but I think I've seen in the even in some Facebook groups.
[SPEAKER_01]: So check into the local theaters.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe just give them a call or stop in and ask them if they offer children's movies during the summer and it would be during the daytime and they figure, hey, this is kind of a fun place for kids to come to.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're already going to be open.
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't really have a lot of people coming.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think auctioned was like a Tuesday or Wednesday at 9.30 a.m. or something like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Next thing about under the category of inside and away from home would be going to children's museums.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, as your kid get older, maybe regular museums might kind of fit this, but we're able to do something inside, often included a lot of play and a lot of exploring.
[SPEAKER_01]: But again, we were inside in the air conditioning and they were having good time.
[SPEAKER_01]: You could meet up with some friends there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have had friends who have gotten memberships to children's museums.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's when maybe something that you might find to children's museum that will give you a summer membership or maybe it's a year-long membership that you can do.
[SPEAKER_01]: But just having some type of place for the kids to play and be a little bit cool and sometimes For us with home schooling, I couldn't always fit in or I didn't necessarily want to fit in a lot of running around during the school year So the summer was a perfect time to go visit those children's museums
[SPEAKER_01]: and the last thing that we did often, which was inside and away from home, was vacation Bible schools.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our church always had one, and then sometimes there would be one or two other churches that would also offer them that I felt comfortable at those churches and or...
[SPEAKER_01]: I would volunteer as well, and so the kids had a really good time at vacation Bible schools.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some years, we even went back to my hometown back to the church that I grew up with, stayed with my parents, and the kids would get to go to the vacation Bible school in the church that I grew up in, and that was so much fun as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: The last category is inside activities at home.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, a lot of these included, well let's say, a lot of days, we're just quiet days at home.
[SPEAKER_01]: For them, just to play.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would maybe take some days that we're just kind of quieter, just, you know, call my mind and my heart down a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or I might use that time that they are quietly playing to catch up on some things and you definitely want to be here for the episode that's coming up on Thursday because we're going to talk about some of that as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: But just some quiet days at home, just to play and just to be at home.
[SPEAKER_01]: We would do family game nights, that would usually probably happen on weekend when my kids were younger, my husband were like a second or a third shift, and he just worked different hours, and so it was easiest just to do those on the weekends when he would be home.
[SPEAKER_01]: We would sometimes do after new movies, just a, and you can stream movies now.
[SPEAKER_01]: But this was a little while ago with my kids, and we would have DVDs, and guess what?
[SPEAKER_01]: We had BHS as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we would just watch a movie, let them maybe build a fort, we had a finished basement, and so it was even cooler down there, you didn't even need air conditioning at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was just felt nice and cool down there, and they would maybe make some forts, and maybe I would make some popcorn, and they would watch a movie, probably a movie that they had watched a million times, probably something like cars, I think, that we all had the original cars movie memorized, but that was always a kind of a fun special little treat to do as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the last thing is we would do puzzles.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe it's you can have kids that are older and you can leave puzzles out and everybody just kind of works on it as it goes along if you have little ones that might not necessarily work unless the table is high enough that they can't reach all of those little pieces.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I hope that this has given you some ideas and ways of adding some fun and some different ideas to your days.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not every day has to be home, not every day has to be out and about.
[SPEAKER_01]: And like I mentioned earlier, I will put in a show notes from different episodes about how you can kind of set up your days and how you can look at it in the summer.