Are you racking your brains to come up with unique ideas to keep the kids entertained all summer without spending a fortune?
Luckily, you don’t always have to pay for expensive summer camps or workshops with these simple and fun summer activities at home. Best of all, these activities are gadget-free and will keep your kids moving without draining your bank account.
Fun Summer Activities at Home: 15 Ways to Keep Kids Entertained This Summer
Table of Contents
1. Picnic in the backyard
1. Picnic in the backyard
Pick a shaded area in your background and lay a thick blanket over the grass. Bring out the goods – sandwiches, hotdogs, fruit juices, and chips. Bring out a speaker and play their favorite songs. It’s a great way to relax with the kids without having to do anything but talk.
2. Make homemade pizza
You can make the dough and let the kids pick their toppings. If you have older kids around, they may even bake the pizza. If you don’t want to bother with the dough, use plain bagels, English muffins, or commercial personal-size pizza crusts. Just spread the sauce and let the kids each top a pizza their way.
3. Swim in the inflatable pool
Beat the heat by taking out an inflatable pool and filling it up with water. Let the kids frolic and have fun while you prepare snacks. They’ll surely be starving after an hour or two of play.
4. Camp-in movie marathon
Push back the furniture in your living room and pitch a tent in the center. Turn off the lights and play their favorite movie. Make some popcorn and enjoy your relaxing night in. Make this a weekly treat and let a different family member choose the movie each time.
5. Doing puzzles
There are always jigsaw puzzles for kids of every age, and it’s easy to pick one that they’re interested in. Whether you let them do the puzzle by themselves, or you help them, this activity should keep them entertained and busy for a few hours.
You can help your children save a favorite puzzle with white glue. You don’t need the special puzzle glue that costs much more than school glue. Carefully slide a double layer of newspaper underneath the finished puzzle. There should be newspaper showing on every side of the puzzle. Pour about half an 8 oz. bottle of cheap white school glue on the center of the puzzle. Let the kids spread the glue with a rubber spatula (the kind you use to clean the icing out of the bowl). Make sure they’re covering every part of the puzzle to the very edges and spreading the glue till it’s all evened out. Pour more if they need more. Let the finished puzzle dry overnight, then you can hang it with push pins, or small tacks, or put it on a bulletin board.
6. Gardening
Gardening is a great way to get kids outdoors in the summer. Designate a flower bed or vegetable patch just for the kids and let them dig into the soil, plant the seeds, and water the plants. (Dollar stores are a great source of cheap seeds.) It’s also a good way to encourage them to eat their veggies.
7. Make their own ice cream
Nobody can resist ice cream on a hot summer day. But instead of buying ice cream for your kids, why not let them make it themselves? There are easy-to-make ice cream recipes that call for simple ingredients. If you want to go a little fancier, consider topping with sprinkles and Oreo bits. Gather your kids’ playmates for an afternoon ice cream date.
One easy recipe is really fun to make. You’ll need either regular white milk, half-and-half, or already-made chocolate milk. If you use white milk or half-and-half, use about 8 oz per kid, add a teaspoon of vanilla extract and 2-3 teaspoons of sugar per 8 oz milk. Chocolate milk needs nothing added.
Pour about 8 oz of the mixture into a pint or quart zipper bag per kid. Push the air out and seal the bag. Drop those sealed bags each into a gallon Ziplock bag about half-filled with ice. Before closing the big bags, add several tablespoons of salt to the ice. (Adding salt lowers the melting temperature, allowing the mixture to freeze.)
Seal the bags and let the kids work in pairs, tossing the bags back and forth to each other. Or each child can just jiggle and shake their bag until the mixture freezes. It should be like soft-serve ice cream in about 6 or 7 minutes or less. It will freeze hard in about 10 minutes, especially if you add a little more salt to each ice bag after it starts to change from a liquid. Give everyone a spoon and they can eat their ice cream right out of the small bag!
8. Make lemonade and let the kids sell it
This is another classic activity that many kids enjoy. Make fresh lemonade and set up a small table outside your home so that your kids can sell it. It helps invoke their entrepreneurial spirit and further develop their expertise in math. If you have cardboard or posterboard, let the kids make a sign for their lemonade stand. Encourage them to figure out how much everything costs, how much they are going to charge, and what they’re going to do with the profits.
9. Treasure hunting
Whether you opt to do it inside your home or outdoors, kids are sure to have a blast uncovering treasures. Hide treasures (delicious treats, new stickers, a fun movie, etc.) in a gaily wrapped box. Whip up a simple map and come up with a couple of riddles. Turn the kids loose to find the treasure.10. Go on a bug hunt
Send the kids outdoors for a bug hunt. They’ll need a magnifying glass, clear plastic container with a lid (be sure to punch some holes in the lid), and perhaps a book on bugs for their reference. This activity will allow kids to get to know the creepy crawlies they find firsthand. Let the kids start a Bug Journal and draw pictures of the bugs they find all summer. You may find them wanting a visit to your local library for more books on bugs! Click the link to use the online bug identification site .Kids can also find out what’s the offical bug in their state11. Kite flying
Show the kids how to make a kite and get them to fly it. Kite flying is a wonderful activity that teaches kids coordination and patience. Also, seeing those colorful kites against the clear blue sky is a sight to behold! Some sites to visit for instructions on kite-making:
Make-an-Easy-Kite
12. Rock painting
Have the kids collect rocks around your home or nearby. Give them some paint (craft paints, or acrylics, or enamels) and brushes, and let them paint to their heart’s content. You can use the finished products to decorate your flower beds, as ornaments in your home, or as paperweights.
13. Cook dinner together
Engage the kids in dinner preparations and teach them the basics like washing and chopping vegetables. It’s also great if you can bring the kids to the grocery or farmers’ market earlier to introduce to them the basics of shopping and budgeting. Depending on the kids’ age, they should be able to pitch in with a task or two of dinner preparations.
14. Make a fort
Kids always love to play house, but a fort could be even better. Get some unused cardboard or large appliance boxes, blankets, and other paraphernalia so that kids can build their own castles, whether inside or outside the home. Beware! You might find that your kids prefer the fort to their bedrooms for several days in a row!
15. Sheet painting
Unleash the inner artists in your kids by giving them a bed sheet you no longer use (or pick one up from a thrift store), some paints, and brushes. Lay the sheet out on the lawn and let the kids paint it as they like. (A painted sheet can be a great backdrop for an outdoor play put on by the kids and their friends! Mention this and the kids may want to decide on what kind of painting they could use for a skit or play they want to perform.)
Whether you want some fun summer activities for preschoolers or older kids, the options are bountiful. Best of all, they’re often cheap, accessible, and educational. These fun summer activities at home will not only keep the kids busy and learning at the same time, but they willalso give them plenty of opportunities to bond with siblings, playmates, and perhaps the entire family. All these benefits for very little money!. So, make this summer the best season yet.
