Fun summer things for kids to do – activities and ideas for a fantastic summer

Many parents get apprehensive when summer vacation is coming up. They’ve had bad experiences before with their kids staying home and fighting all day long over the tiniest things. This doesn’t have to be your case. How many times have you listened to those “I’m so bored!” whiny complaints? If you take simple preventative steps you can plan out a fun summer vacation for everyone in your family!



This post is divided in two parts:

Summer Activities in the Home

Outdoors Summer Activities

Play Games
Children of all ages love to play games. Consider having a family fun night once a week where everyone in the family plays games together. Make an evening of it by planning a special meal, perhaps having pizza delivered. Each week, let one child select the games that you’ll play. They can be board games, card games whichever game they feel like playing. There may be time to play more than one game. If you have enough people in your family, you may want to break into teams and play against each other. Having one parent per team is best. Have fun and enjoy each other.

Lots of fun books
Getting lots of fun books to read together as a family is another idea. Go to a library and borrow lots of interesting books. Have a family reading night. Leave the books in places where the kids can easily access them.

Watch Movies
Watching movies that everyone in the family can enjoy is another fun activity you can do with your children. Have one person make a list of all the videos you would like to watch as a family, and then work your way through the list. Make some popcorn or a movie-themed snack, sit back, and enjoy yourselves.

Painting and art
Kids are naturally creative. Buy some cool brushes and non toxic paint for them to do their own artwork at home. Big sheets of white paper will stimulate them to paint. They love it! For younger kids you can buy some of play dough sets and have them play with those. Just make sure you always put them in a closed recipient after you are done or else they will dry out.

Here are some places you can go over the summer:

Go to the beach or to a pool
Kids love to go swimming. Plan a day out with them. If you need to work then take your papers with you. Be sure to use clothespins and weights so things don’t fly away. That way you can multitask- watch them while getting things done. Make sure you are in a position where you can see them at all times. You can’t multitask like this though if your kids are very little. If they’re preschoolers or toddlers then you’ll need to give them your full attention when going to the beach or to a pool. One minute of distraction near the pool or beach can be very dangerous.

A Trip to the zoo
Children love zoos. Being able to see all the different animals of the world is fun and educational. Check with a zoo nearby to see if they have discount days during the summer. Take the children to the zoo on that day. Another fun things to do is to give the kids some spending money to that they can purchase a souvenir. They always look forward to that.

Museum Day
Contrary to what many people think, museums are really fun. Science museums are especially fun because they have activities for the children to do for the various sections of the museum. If the museum that you are going to visit doesn’t have fun activities you can always plan fun activities according to theme of the museum. This may take a little more work but the kids will love it and be learning at the same time.