• Is there a better way to spend a sunny summer day then having a spontaneous picnic? Whether it's in a park, at the beach or in your backyard - picnics are so much fun! Have a Picnic Basket ready to Go!! What you need:picnic basket, cooler, beach bag or cardboard box large blanket or tablecloth for sitting on handi-wipes or baby wipes recyclable plastic or disposable plates and cups Insect repellent, band-aids, sunscreen Non-Perishable Foods:
• Drink boxes Trail mix
• Marshmallows
• Prepackaged cheese and crackers
• bars
• Prepackaged treats
• Raisins
• Cookies
• condiments (ketchup, salt, pepper, relish, vinegar) - save the ones you get at restaurants

• Bubble liquid and wands
• Butterfly net
• Bug jar
• Sand pails and shovels
• Sidewalk chalk
• Beach ball
• Binoculars
• Frisbee
• Ball, bat and glove

Keep your favorite things in a handy pack sack and ready to grab when Mom calls

Food Safety Tips
Food-borne illness rises in the summer, so we need to pay special attention to safe food handling. Bacteria can grow on just about any food, as long as they have time and the right conditions--food, moisture, and warm
temperatures. When it’s hot outside, foods can quickly reach the "Danger Zone" (temperatures between 40°F and 140°F where bacteria multiply rapidly). We usually target raw foods of animal origin such as meat, poultry, seafood, milk, and eggs as being the culprit in carrying food-borne organisms, but some fruits and vegetables can carry bacteria, and any food that comes in contact with the organism can also prove harmful. This last possibility is called cross-contamination. Here’s an example of cross-contamination: Harmful bacteria present on raw meat contacts a cutting board during preparation. The same (unwashed) cutting board is used a moment later to chop vegetables for a raw salad. If the meat is cooked thoroughly, it will be safe to eat. However, the salad will not be cooked, so given enough time and warm temperatures, the bacteria might multiply to levels that could cause illness.

Another type of contamination does not even involve ingestion of a food or beverage. Bacteria can be passed from hand to mouth, which makes frequent hand-washing important. So how can we reduce our risks of contracting a food-borne illness? It’s really pretty easy, as long as you know how and put the principles into practice. The Partnership for Food Safety Education promotes the Fight BAC! (bacteria) campaign for consumer education. Check out their detailed information at http://www.fightbac.org. The basic principles are as follows:

• CLEAN Wash hands and surfaces often.
• SEPARATE Don’t cross-contaminate.
• CHILL Refrigerate promptly.
• COOK Cook to proper temperatures.

Picnic Safety
Let’s get back to our picnic. Here are some specific guidelines for a safe outdoor meal. Carry foods in an insulated cooler which includes a cold source such as ice, frozen packs, or frozen water containers. Keep the cooler covered or in the shade. Replenish the ice if it melts. If a cooler is not available, take fresh, washed fruits and vegetables, hard cheese, canned or dried meats or fish, peanut butter, breads, or crackers.Make sure that raw meat, poultry, or fish and their juices do not touch other foods. Cook them thoroughly, and use a clean plate and utensils for serving. If it is 85°F or above, do not let food sit out for more than one hour. Just take out what you need from the cooler. Toss anything left out in the heat for an hour or more. Bring moist towelettes or washcloths so you can clean your hands before and during food preparation. A spray bottle filled with clean water and soap is
another alternative.

We have our snack on a blanket on the floor

Plan an indoor winter picnic
Even in winter, it's not too early for summer fun. If your family gets the midwinter blahs every year, lift your spirits with this "summertime without the mosquitoes" activity. Surprise your family with an indoor winter picnic. Spread out a checkered tablecloth on the dining room floor or in front of a fireplace. Serve cold chicken and potato salad,
corn-on-the-cob, pickles, carrot sticks, and chips. Enjoy a fresh fruit salad or an ice cream bar for dessert. Wear summer shirts and hats and play summertime music on a tape recorder to set the mood. Tease the family by placing plastic ants or a plastic spider on an unsuspecting person's plate!

Yogurt Top Concentration:
Take the plastic tops off of yogurt containers (make sure you have at least two for each flavor), turn them upside-down and play concentration, or leave them up for younger children to match them.

Put a plastic tablecloth in the middle of the circle area. Put several items on it that you can use for a picnic. Let the kids look at the items for several minutes. Take the tablecloth and items away and see how many items they can remember.

Using the pattern from the book, Brown, Bear, Brown Bear write a watermelon book:
Cover (color to look like inside of watermelon) "Watermelon, Watermelon
page 2- Brown dirt, brown dirt what do you see? (put real dirt on this page)
page 3-I see black seeds looking at me. (glue real seed)
Black seeds, black seeds what do you see?
Page 4-I see blue water looking at me.
Blue water, blue water what do you see?
Page 5-I see a green vine looking at me.
Page 6- Green vine, green vine what do you see?
Page 7-I see a flower looking at me. (I think you get the picture now)
page 8-I see...watermelon
page 9-watermelon, watermelon what do you see?
I see (teacher's name) class looking at me!

Picnic concentration game
Make up match cards about things you see at a Picnic,
like butterflies, ants, baseball and bat, fishing,
ducks, etc. and use the cards to play a memory
matching game.

Play a Tisket a Tasket, Guess What's in the Basket
-Cut out pictures of picnic foods and glue them onto index cards. Place them in a picnic basket. Without showing the rest of the group describe the food using descriptive words such as its colr, shape, smell,etc. The group tries
to guess the picnic food. The one who guesses correctly chooses the next card. Continue playing until all the food cards are chosen.

Picnic Penny Pick-Up
Choose a specific play area and scatter pennies in this area. Place a red and white checked tablecloth on the ground next to the play area to serve as a math board. Tell the children to search for the pennies and that everytime they have 5 pennies they must go to the cloth and put those 5 pennies on one of the white squares. Place a reasonable time limit for the children to find the pennies.

When that time is up ring a bell annd gather them around the cloth. Ask for predictions about how many pennies they have found. Then work as a group to count all the sets of five using skip counting.

Pack a Picnic:
-Supply a large picnic basket with a big opening on top. On hand have plastic fruit and other types of food for a picnic. Include plastic ants, napkins and a tablecloth. Make a starting line about three feet away from the basket.

Have the picnic items at this line. Take turns tossing items into the basket from behind the line. Have them pay attention to what is easy to throw into the basket and what is hard to get in. Why is this? Discuss size, shape and weight of the picnic items. Have them discover that they can change some items so that they will be easier to throw into the basket. For example they can turn paper napkins into paper airplanes and fly them in, etc.

To familiarize students will important places and people in the school go on a watermelon hunt. Post clues throughout the school that lead from one important location to another. As the students read and follow the clues they are practicing proper hallway behavior and learning to find their way around the school. Hide the watermelon in the last location (I always hide it in the principal's office). Don't eat it yet!!!)

To teach the concept of sink and float, have students predict whether or not the watermelon will float in a tub of water. Record predictions and check it out.

To encourage children to take risks, practice estimating and practice counting, do the following estimation activities:

• Have each student lift the watermelon and estimate how much it weighs. Write down estimates and check with a scale. (We borrow the scale from the nurse'soffice).
• Have each student estimate the number of seeds in the watermelon. Write down predictions. After the watermelon is cut and eaten, be sure to save all the seeds.
• Have the children work cooperatively to count them into groups of ten (I use portion cups). Then put the "tens" into "hundreds" and figure out a final total. Don't throw the seeds away!!! We're not finished :-)
  

To provide practice in color recognition, following directions and vocabulary development have students sponge paint watermelons on a half paper plate. Have students paint the green rind on the outside, the red fruit on the inside and let dry. Then instruct students to glue a given number of seeds to the fruit (I use five).

In order to watch the development of a plant and learn related vocabulary,
have each student plant several watermelon seeds in milk cartons. Observe the
growth over several weeks.

Group Picnic Story:

Explain to the group that they will be writing a story together. Discuss the importance of listening and taking turns. Review sequence. Together write a story from ant's point of view at a picnic. Record the story on chart paper. Have each child illustrate a part of the story. sequence for a book.

Let's Pretend
Let's pretend we're having fun at a picnic everyone.
Then some picnic pets come ' round..
Birds that flutter to the ground.
Crickets who can jump so funny,and a wiggly little bunny.
Butterflies on lazy wings, squirrels, and lots of other things!
Let's pretend that we are all picnic pets who've come to call.

Five Senses Walk Story
Take a pretend 'sense walk'. Have all of the children stand up. Have them begin walking in place. Start the story. 'Oh it was a beautiful day. The weather was warm, the wind was blowing slightly, and Tommy and his mother
decided to go for a walk to the park. They packed a picnic lunch and began to walk to the park. While they walked they looked (stop and let the children point to their eyes.) For all of the animals, birds, and insects.

The neighbor's dog came up the walk toward them. Tommy stopped to pet her. (stop and let the children touch their hands.) Her fur was so soft and silky. On they went to the park. Oh No! Tommy and his mother held their...(Stop and let the children do the same) Guess what they smelled? You're right, they smelled a skunk. They started walking faster to get away from that smell.

Soon they were far enough away and they could let go of their noses.They were a little out of breath since they had been walking so fast. They walked a little slower and did not talk for a while, they simply listened for the sounds around them. (stop and let the children point to their ears.) They could hear lots of things. What do you think were some of the sounds they heard? (Let the children answer.)

SPRING PICNIC
Materials:
•blanket
•picnic items --thermos, napkins, paper plates, cups, utensils, cooler, table cloth
Procedure: Choose a child to be a mischievous little squirrel who takes 1 item while the others cover their eyes. Children then try to guess which item is missing.
Extension: Enjoy some picnic food after the game.

One game ideas is hot potato: WE pass a potato around to music and when the music stops, whoever is holding the potato is out. But, that person gets a small gift like a sticker or eraser and then we continue. In this way, no child is a loser, each one still gets something. And the winner(last child left holding the potatoe) would get a bigger prize like a notepad or whatever we chose to be the prize.

Food:
Watermelon "Zipper sippers"
Watermelon, Ziplock Bags, Dull knife, Straws
Give each child a slice of melon. Melon should be cut with a dull knife or
side of fork into small cubes. Remove the seeds, and place the melon chunks
into the bag. Place a straw into the corner of the bag, and close the zipper
around the straw. The child then squishes the melon, making juice. Drink!
Afterwards, the pulpy leftover can be eaten with a spoon.

ANTS IN THE SAND
2 Graham crackers Chocolate sprinkles
Place graham crackers in a plastic sandwich bag and crush with a rolling pin. Add a few chocolate sprinkles to make ants, then seal the bag. Give them to the kids to take outside and eat or let them pour it into a small bowl and eat at the table--using their fingers, of course.

Variations: Add raisins (call them beetles), red hots (ladybugs) or mini chocolate chips (spider eggs). ource: Healthy Treats and Super Snacks for Kids

*Picnic Basket Fruit Salad
Materials needed;
Assorted fruits, like apples, bananas, melons of different kinds,
grapes,
strawberries, blueberries, etc.
Plastic Knives
Melon Ballers
Apple Corers
Teacher Prep:
Cut the watermelon in the shape of a basket with a handle.
Process:
Have the kids cut the fruit into bite size pieces, being careful to Remove any seeds. Have them take turns using the melon baller and the apple corer with supervision. Concepts learned: I am capable of helping to make snack. I need to be careful when using a knife or other kitchen utensils. We don't eat the seeds in most fruit.

Ice-Cream Punch
2 qt. vanilla ice cream
1-1/2 cup cold water
1 12 oz can frozen lemonade concentrate, thawed
1 2-liter bottle of 7-Up, chilled
Spoon ice cream by tablespoonfuls into a large punch bowl. Add water and lemonade concentrate; stir just till combined. Slowly pour 7-Up down the side of bowl. Stir gently to mix. Makes 32 servings.

PICNIC CRAFTS
Have a picture of a picnic basket ( a large one) and have children glue food onto it. You can also have a picture of a blanket next to it and glue people on it. You can talk about actions, label foods, and actually plan to have a picnic of your own in class and talk about what you are going to do.

Make a picnic duplicate picnic basket patterns on white construction paper. Have the children decorate, paint, or color the baskets as they choose. After the children have cut the baskets out, staple around the outer edge so the basket is sealed closed. Then give the children several magazines with a lot of food item pictures to choose from.

The children may then choose the food they would like to take with them on a picnic. After cutting or tearing out the pictures and placing them in the basket, have a pretend picnic inside. Of course this can become as elaborate as the caregiver and children wish. We have had at our picnics ants (raisins) and wooly worms on sprigs of greeenery etc.

Picnic Basket (3-D)
Get some plastic strawberry containers and some ribbon for weaving.Have the children weave their own mini picnic basket.

BBQ APRON
Materials Needed:
Plain Canvas apron
Tracing paper
various summer designs from news paper or magazines
variety of fabric paints
and Lots of imagination
Begin by tracing or drawing things that are summer related like hotdogs, hamburgers, Ice cream, sunshine,
beach balls, etc. Next, have younger children trace the outer lines of these items. Older children may be able to do the drawing themselves. (Tracing paper can be used to draw designs of more complex summer treats)

Then allow apron to dry overnight -- 24 hours is ideal
And voila!

Sunglasses
Make sunglasses by cutting sunglasses out of cardboard. Glue colored saran wrap to make the lenses and add string to secure glasses around young heads.

Also going to try this year, cutting red squares from construction paper and having the kids glue to look like a red and white checker table cloth. we will then glue the cut out food adds and add a few small plastic ants. we will sing the ants go marching in.

we will also paint with food < one of my personal favorites like corn on the cob, bell peppers, mushrooms etc.

July is National Hot Dog Month

Have each child fold a 6 by 4 piece of brown construction paper in 1/2. Cut 2 slits in the center on the fold, about 1" apart for a tab. Push the tab thru to the inside. Round the corners on the paper to resemble a hot dog bun. Next Round corners on a 11/2 by 6 piece of red construction paper to make a hot dog. Glue it to the tab. Use markers to embellish your hot dog with catsup, chili, cheese, etc.

Finally fold a 9 by 12 piece of white paper in 1/2 for a cover. Center the brown bun and glue to the white paper.
At the bottom write your recipe for a hot dog

Put on some _________.

Put on some _____________.

Put on some__________. Mmmm, hot dog!

Paper Bag Picnic Baskets
Here's what you need:
White craft glue Paper Plate
Markers Child Safety Scissors
Large brown paper bag Old magazines
Here's what you do:
Use scissors to cut off top half of the paper bag. Fold over rim of the bag.Cut a handle from the top half, then glue it onto sides of the rim to make a basket. Decorate the basket with markers. Use the scissors to cut pictures of food from old magazines. Glue magazine food pictures onto the paper plate. Place plate in the basket for a picnic.

More ideas:
Use scissors to cut fringes around the edges of a large sheet of paper. Color paper with markers for a picnic blanket (don't forget to draw the ants!). Use scissors to cut flowers, bugs, or designs out of construction paper. Glue onto sides of basket.
Talk about your favorite foods to pack in a picnic basket. Describe how they taste: sweet, salty, sour, spicy.

Picnic Themes: Red and White Tableclothes
Section off a piece of white paper, into squares and have the children glue red squares of paper in every other spot. This is also a good time to talk about the food groups.

Songs and Chants:

GOING ON A PICNIC
Going on a picnic
Leaving right away
If it doesn't rain
We'll stay all day
Did you bring the _____________(eg. lemonade)
Yes, we brought the _____________
Did you bring the _____________
Yes, we brought the _____________...
Going on a picnic

A-B-CDE
Watermelon is good for me. F-G-HIJ
I can eat it everyday.
K-L-MNO
Plant a seed and watch it grow
P-Q-RST
Ripe and very juicy
U-V-WXY
You will like it if you give it a try.
Z-Z-ZZZ
Watermelon is good for me

Watermelon
(Tune: "Are You Sleeping")
Watermelon, watermelon,
On the vine, on the vine,
Green and ripe and juicy,
Green and ripe and juicy,
Please be mine,
Please be mine

Watermelon Chant
Bite - Bite - bite into the watermelon
Bite - bite - bite into the fruit,
(repeat several times)
Juicy is the watermelon
Juicy is the watermelon
Juicy, juicy, juicy, juicy
Juicy is the fruit.
(repeat several times)
For a real challenge have half of the class say the top part of the chant and half of the class say the bottom part of the chant at the same time.

A song.........
I don't know how to explain the tune, but the last word of each line is sunglonger than the rest....
Going on a picnic,
going right away.
If it doesn't rain,
we'll stay all day.
(Adult sings) Did you bring the Hot Dogs?
(Kids sing) Yes we brought the Hot Dogs!
(The last two lines are sung over and over again, substituting the
underlined words with different picnic related (&sometimes silly) items. Every 3
verses, repeat all the lines again.)


Picnics
Fried chicken, watermelon, apple pie;
Do you love picnics? So do I!
Lemonade, root beer, chocolate cake,
Lazy canoe rides along the lake.
Games and singing -- let's square dance!
And don't forget, at picnics, you'll have A N T S!


(to the rhythm of the "watermelon cheer")
Watermelon, watermelon,
Watermelon, rind!
Look in the kindergarten,
See who you find...
ME! ME! ME! ME!

Bulletin Board

Welcome bulletin board or wall display:
Cut a watermelon shape for each student and write his/her name on it. Put up a brown background and randomly attach watermelons. Cut curly watermelon vines by starting with a green circle and cutting toward the center using a spiral pattern. Weave in and out of the watermelons you have hung up. Put up the following caption: "Look who's "growing" to Kindergarten (or other grade).