Summer Activities

[calendula]

The kids are out of school for the summer after this week, and I am working a job now that will allow me to be home with them some days. What are some good (free! ) activities to do with kids during the summer?

 

[sunsaver]

Just letting them help can often have a big impact. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of helping my mother cook, or helping dad plant a vegetable garden, or cranking the handle on the ice cream maker. Water guns are cheap and fun for kids and adults alike, playing in the lawn sprinkler is fun, hide and go seek, building tents out of old blankets, camping in the back yard. There are so many fun things you can do with kids, that are free and priceless.

 

[framing fowl]

It probably depends a bit on the ages... The library usually has fun free kid activities for all different ages. You might also take them on an art gallery tour, picnic in the park, pressing flowers and plants in an old telephone book and making notecards or bookmarks, hotdog & marshmallow roasts in the backyard, outdoor scavenger hunts...

I agree with just having them help you too. I loved doing that as a kid.

 

[patandchickens]

I wasn't homeschooled as such (but did get most of the more-useful parts of my education at home rather than at school LOL), but when I was a kid mom would start the summer with a big list of trips/activities on the kitchen blackboard, each of which had a point value; and a corresponding list of things we could do around the house, each of which could earn you points.

The activities included a few purely "fun kid things" like going to Hershey Park or Great Adventure, but was primarily things like local museums (the free or cheap ones) and local/state parks where you could see educational exhibits and go for a walk and annoy frogs and look at wildflowers; and activities like making or cooking things.

Mom tells me (now that I am 46 with kids of my own) that she didn't do this so much for eddificational purposes as to keep herSELF from going stark staring crazy with boredom LOL. But it was great for us, too. And many of the tasks to earn points towards Fun Things were constructive in their own right, such as having a garage sale of our outgrown toys (math and organizational skills), garden chores, mending clothes, etc.

So that is something to consider anyhow. The big thing is to do some research into what free/cheap places/activities there are, around you -- on the one hand a lot of the things that were free when I was a kid charge significant admission now, but on the other hand there's a lot more things (many of which are free, like kite flying festivals and so forth) that didn't even EXIST when I was a kid, so it probably roughly evens out


Pat, looking forward to my first-grader's last day of school in 3 wks, for one thing it'll let me sleep in a little later

 

[sunsaver]

I used to love going on fishing trips with Mom and Dad. Or just poking around the woods with my big brother.

 

[calendula]

Thank you for all the suggestions!

You are right sunsaver, letting the kids help out will be great for them. They've got their own little garden plots this year, plus they help out with the rest of the garden, the animals, and cooking. The love helping out as long as it involves the animals or the garden...dishes, dusting, and other housework however...not so much.

But, Pat, that blackboard idea is awesome! Your mom sounds like a neat woman. I think having something to work towards would definately motivate them to help out more around the house. And a garage sale is a good idea. I was also thinking that since we usually have so much extra basil, thyme, and other herbs, the kids could sell that, too.

framing fowl, my boys are 9 and 6 years old. I did check out the public library, and they have a whole bunch of stuff going on this summer. Plus, my boys love to read (we're all bookworms), so we'll probably make it to the library at least once a week.

I'm kind of looking at this as my chance to "homeschool" the kids this summer. You know, teach them some stuff they won't learn at public school and just make it a memorable summer for them. Thanks so much for the ideas, and I'd love to hear more if anyone has any.

 

[patandchickens]

FWIW, I'm sort of vaguely hoping this summer once school's out to ask each kid for a couple of topics they'd like to learn more about or do more of, and then spend maybe a week on each one just seeing what activities we can think of to explore that.

Am pretty sure that the 4 year old's list will include something about making popsicles LOL but hey there's lots of interesting popsicle-related things to do if you think about it; and am pretty sure the soon-to-be-7 year old's list will include a carpentry project. Beyond that, I dunno, not going to bring it up to them until school really IS out in three wks.

Pat

 

[framing fowl]

Pat, one of my favorite things that we actually did do in school that I still remember was a chocolate lab. There were about 25 things on the list that we could do and we had to pick 15. Things like designing our own candy bar wrapper, doing a report on the history of, buying 3 candy bars and comparing the list of ingredients and figuring out the healthiest, etc.

Popsicles would be fun!

 

[framing fowl]

You know, thinking about this almost for 2 seconds makes me wish I had a kid I could adopt... for about a day, and then send home!

 

[savingdogs]

Going swimming was always the favorite summer passtime when I was little and when the kids were little. is there any lake, ocean, river, public pool or place like that to go to? We used to do things on a certain day of the week, Friday was swim day and we would often try to meet other families at the lake so their friends would be there on the same day.

My kids also liked going to parks, and "having a friend spend the night", building forts in the yard with whatever, and going to the library.

I think summer activities should include chores for kids of all ages but in summer I would give them things to do like water the lawn, wash the dog or help me garden. They liked having their OWN garden and OWN plants.

For the younger one, we would have the kids collect a bunch of interesting rocks and buy a can of gold spray paint and paint the rocks, first one side and then the other after the first side dried. Then you can hide them for a gold rush "hunt". You'd be surprised how well this one goes over especially when you have a couple friends over. Kids will play for hours with those spray painted "gold" rocks. I would give the boys a bandana or a feather and they were off, pretending they were in the Old West. I think that using their imagination is the best way to have fun.