It’s finally June and here’s the good news: no more carpools, lunchboxes or searching for clean socks. (It’s flip-flop weather!) The bad news? Keeping the kids occupied all day is now on you. To the rescue comes our ’08 roundup of hot spots where kids and parents can have fun.

Take Summer to the Extreme
Sky High Sports lets kids literally “bounce off the walls.” Trampoline walls and floors make the most extreme stunt moves easy, fun and safe. Parents can also drop in and bounce, try out their exhilarating AIRobics Classes ($5 Tuesdays & Thursdays at 6pm or 7pm), or play dodgeball on their bounce court. $9 an hour, 11am-10pm. Note: Kids need to have signed parent release forms in order to participate (and those over 18 need to bring ID); and you can register online in advance.

Along this same stretch of Folsom Blvd. in Rancho Cordova, you can also jump into a fast-paced game of indoor soccer or lacrosse at Metro City Soccer or try rock-climbing at Granite Arch, California’s largest indoor rock climbing gym.

Or be brave and visit the new Monster Mini-Golf in the Nimbus Winery. It’s the only place in town you can play glow-in-the-dark mini-golf surrounded by monsters!

Make a Splash
Bridgeway Lakes Park Sprayground is now open in West Sacramento, and it is literally the coolest place to hang out this summer! This large concrete area has water spraying up out of the ground and raining down from above, plus water guns to spray your friends with! You’ll especially like it if you have little kids who are not quite water safe yet (no need to pack life jackets or water wings). There are restrooms, a BBQ area and walking paths to enjoy. You’ll find it at 3650 Southport Parkway, open from 10am to 8pm daily. FREE!

Lone Tree Park is a 30 acre park with a huge playground for children ages 5-12, and an adjacent water play area. You could easily watch your little tadpole splash around in the spray pools without losing track of your little climber on the play structure. Picnic tables and restrooms facilities are easy to access. The park opens at dawn and closes an hour after sunset. It’s located at the corner of West Oaks Blvd. and Lone Tree Blvd. in Rocklin. FREE!

Paradise Cove Aquatic & Dive Center recently opened in Rancho Cordova, offering drop-in swim ($4-$6), swim lessons and scuba certification. They also host a Parents’ Night Out on the last Saturday of each month. Open 6am to 9pm Mon-Fri, 9am to 6pm Sat, and closed Sun. (ParadiseCoveAquatics.com)

Kick-Flip into Fun
Is your skater bored with the wooden ramp in your driveway? Introduce him to a real skate park, where he can experience bowls and street courses, rails and half-pipes. Cummings Family Skate and Bike Park in Folsom is a favorite. The bike and skate parks have separate entries (each fenced separately), but both are located within Cummings Family Park. There is even a small play area, so you can entertain little ones while your boarder is shredding up the park, and supervision at all hours means no worries about bullies or other scary teenage behavior. 1pm-8pm Sun-Thu and 1pm-9pm Fri-Sat. $2. 817-2767.

Citrus Heights Skate Park is another of the best parks in the Sacramento Area (though smaller than the Folsom Skate Park). The bowls (around 4-5 feet deep) are the highlight of this park. It’s open daily, from dawn until dusk, in Rusch Park, which also has swimming pools, playgrounds, shade trees, picnic tables, volleyball, basketball and tennis courts—almost everything you could want on a summer day. Located at Auburn Blvd. and Antelope Rd. in Citrus Heights. FREE!

Granite Skate Park is one of the biggest in California. It offers a combination of both bowls and a street course. The eight bowls range from beginner to expert, and the challenging street course winds through the park and includes a large plaza area. Granite Skate Park will soon have lights and be open 8am to 10pm for the summer. Located off Power Inn Road in Sacramento. FREE!

Explore the Great Indoors
Check out these amazing, kid-friendly (and air-conditioned!) exhibits at local museums. At The California Museum of History, Women and the Arts (located at 10th and O in downtown Sacramento), an 1860s Chinese herbalist will speak to you from behind his counter—via a life-like holograph—or you can learn the origin of the Barbie doll. Kids will also enjoy California Canines: Dogs With Jobs. Hours are 10am-5pm daily (except Sundays: 12pm-5pm). Admission: $7.50 for adults, free for children under 5.

As the parent of any one-year-old can tell you—the world we live in is never still. Things spin, roll, flow and grow. The Explorit Science Center in Davis has taken the theme of motion and created a hands-on exhibit called Move It! Science in Action. It is the first major exhibition at The Explorit Science Center (located on 2nd Street in Davis), and the latest in Exporit’s wonderful offerings designed to spark kids’ curiosity about all things cool and science-related. Hours are 2pm-4:30pm Tue-Fri and 11am-4:30pm weekends. Admission is $4, free for children 3 and under. Free Admission Sundays the 4th Sunday of each month.