Although many people with children dread summer, dread facing and dealing with their own children on a daily basis, I welcome it.
At-home moms work as hard as anyone else during the school year and love taking a break from conducting a school; I love changing from working at a desk to working outdoors; I love having time for some fun stuff with the funnest young people I know.
In my case, I doubly welcome a few days to take on my grandchildren, in a yearly event I call “Camp Grandmother”, complete with fun activities for every day.
Here, two of my dearies enjoy the cool of a summer morn, in the shade on the east side of our house, making chalk art with homemade chalk their older cousins helped make last summer. (Plaster of Paris inside toilet tissue cores you’ve dipped in melted paraffin.)
Not a care in the world, hair not yet groomed, clothing so loose it falls off, they attempt a sailboat and some sort of grid work.
Takes me back . . .
Enjoy them while they are young. They are growing up right before your eyes and you will miss them, one day.
Home's Cool! 
Great photos. 🙂 Chalk art looks pretty fun.
Thanks for the kind comments, Sheri, and WELCOME to Home’s Cool!
Sidewalk art with chalk IS fun! They only stopped when my sidewalk was filled. 🙂
I love to see children playing like this. I always think a grubby child is a happy one and I loved it when my boys got filthy when playing 🙂
Impressed with the homemade chalk!
They were impressed with the chalk, too! I love chalk! 🙂
And grubby children. And tanned children. And all the other children, too.
I can’t help but wonder if parents who look forward to sending their kids off to school do so because they think their kids need to be entertained all the time? I can’t make sweeping judgments, of course. I just wonder. I hear the words “I’m, bored,” and I tell them to go scrub baseboards. They very quickly find something to do! 😛
Can you color the chalk? And can you share the instructions, please? We have a tradition of buying a HUGE bucket of sidewalk chalk at the beginning of summer, but how fun to make it!
I know my mom did not want us around because we dirtied the house, argued, and had to be fed. I know when my eldest was in school, I loved the time to myself, the quiet, and the fact that my child-raising duties were over, so I thought.
Which really proves that the school is the other mother.
Not for me. I saw what I was doing and repented.
I think you can color the chalk, but that defeats the purpose, in my opinion. 🙂 Basically, what you do to make the chalk is to set toilet tissue centers on end and fill with plaster of Paris, mixed according to the package directions. We found the tubes sometimes give way, due to moisture in the plaster leaching into the glue of the tube. Dipping in paraffin, first, should stop that. Not sure.
Anyway, the plaster is somewhat caustic when wet, and not for little ones to mess with. When it sets, it heats up pretty hot, too, so again, use caution around little ones. Basically, though, it’s just mix and pour. Too easy.