Is it summer yet?

In the hope that it is here to stay, these are a few things I have learnt about Miss/Master friendly activities during sunny summer spells...

Yoghurt drops - Miss/Master can make these with your help. Spoon yoghurt onto a baking paper-lined plate or dish to make discs of about 2cm in diameter. Place these in the freezer in the morning for a frosty afternoon treat.

Home made smoothies - depending upon the age of your Miss/Master, offer them fruit to chop or bowls of chopped fruit from which they select their smoothie ingredients. If you keep blueberries or other small or chopped fruit in the freezer this will help chill your smoothie without having to add ice.

Messy play (bath) - cooked and dyed (food dye) spaghetti is usually a winner with my Miss, Master likes playing with jelly. But watercolour painting with fingers, toy vehicle wheels, toy animal footprints (your imagination is the only limitation) onto paper or tiled walls can be contained and quickly cleaned up and Miss/Master bathed if it all happens in the one place - the bathroom.

Messy play (outside) - a wading pool can be a great source of fun on hot days when combined with messy play. Think water colour painting, mud pies and tea parties, chalk drawing, bubble blowing... Clever parent friends of mine put bath wash in the pool at the end of the day making a modern day Roman Bath (well, you get the idea). Result.

Spray bottles - some folks may object to using a spray bottle as a 'gun', however, I grew up with a healthy respect for guns. We played cowboys & Indians/cops & robbers with spray bottles on hot days. We also tried to write/spray our names on the footpath or any other paved space. For the gun wary, the spray bottle could be set to 'spray'.

Sprinkler running - one of my favourite hot day activities as a child. I spent hours running in and out of the sprinkler's arc, and when that became boring we would run to the middle, pull a silly pose and then run out again - competing against each other for the best silly pose. This was also a great way to water the garden (hose pipe ban permitting).

At this point, it would remiss of me not to repeat the simple, sun-smart advice I heard throughout the sunny days of my childhood, "Slip, Slop, Slap!", that is, slip on a shirt, slop on sunscreen and slap on a hat.

Happy summer, folks!