Gather your favorite recipes, bakers! It’s time to compete to create the perfect pie, piece by piece!

For days when you’re stuck inside, every parent needs a good set of screen-free activities that kids can do on their own.

As a mom of 5, these activities help function as a tool to give me a break so that I can quick throw in another load of laundry, keep some kids busy while I present a homeschool lesson to another child, or just give me a break from the millions of questions kids ask all day long. (Honestly, they are non-stop!)

While you know we love games around here, I want to share with you a few of my favorite solo logic and puzzle activities that help this stay-at-home mom make it through the day in case you find yourself in need of a few “mom-not-required” activities. 

Competition is a great thing. 

Whether its board games, sports, or even academics, healthy competition helps prepare kids for life’s challenges as they must exert effort for results, stick with things even when it gets tough, and learn to manage both success and failure. 

If you have kids yourself, you have probably seen first hand that losing gracefully does not exactly come naturally. And if you watch professional sports, you know losing is not something made suddenly easy in adulthood. 

Losing gracefully, as with most things, starts in the home. Teaching respectful sportsmanship in the home is of great importance and board games are a great place to start and continue learning those lessons.

Snail Sprint. If there’s a more apt way to describe our life right now I’m not aware of it. With a brand new baby added to our clan, we feel like we are rushing everywhere, trying to do all the things, but getting no where fast. 

While we’ve been enjoying a lot of extra time at home cuddling our baby and falling behind on laundry (is it ever possible to get caught up?) we’ve also been having a lot of fun playing games with our four big kids and Snail Sprint has been on repeat for our boys. 

Summer break is finally here! We’ve got your roundup of some great games to help keep the weeks fun and brains sharp all summer long!