Fun Summer Activities for Families

As a kid, summer meant total freedom! Endless days to do what I wanted. As a parent, summer meant endless days that needed something to do. Keeping our family healthy has always been very important to me, and I tended to develop routines during the summer to reduce the kids screen time and provide for some much needed fun.

Speaking of fun, check out our fun family activities here :)

Exercise

We tend to spend too many of our days sitting: at school, work, or in front of a screen. Exercise is not only important for our body’s physical health, but our mental health as well. It reduces stress, increases endorphins, and generally helps your body grow. During the summer, there are so many opportunities for exercise that don’t exist as easily during the rest of the year.

Easy, low-cost, low-prep activities include walking, hiking, jogging, riding a bike, nature walks, playing a game in the yard, finding the closest park with slides and a jungle gym and having contests for push-ups, and other such body weight exercises. A little more planning nets you swimming at a local pool or lake, adding weights into your body weight routine, walking in the sand, or volleyball, baseball and soccer games with friends. 

Educational Activities

Summer slide is a real thing. As a retired teacher, it always takes the first month of school for students to adjust to attending to and remembering academics. Reading, writing and math practice during the summer go a long way to reducing that slide. Having a family reading challenge, writing a book or practicing money skills are all great activities to do in the summer. While too much screen time during the summer isn’t ideal, finding a math practice website is usually pretty engaging for all kids. 

But summer should be fun too! And you can definitely develop skills such as critical thinking, perseverance, and independence, while developing background knowledge as well through games. Check out the printable puzzles and games in our store that work with groups and individually. From crossword puzzles to escape rooms, you can buy, print and use them in the same day!

Creativity

Creativity is not only fun, it builds incredible life skills: developing ideas, planning, problem solving, and resilience. Helping your child plan some creative projects during the summer also gives them something to look forward to doing and fills the time when the weather may not be conducive to outdoor play. Learning a new skill, cooking meals, building sculptures and other art projects are usually pretty easy to accomplish without too much effort on your part. If they do want to try something more expensive, having them earn money through chores or other jobs to offset the cost helps them truly own the project.

Fun Family Activities

Finally, fun family activities are almost a given during the summer! There are so many to pick from, sometimes it is hard to decide. No matter your schedule, fitting in some fun during the week can be as simple as eating dinner outside, going for a picnic in a local park on the weekend and flying a kite, going on a family created scavenger hunt, or finding a farmer’s market to discover new foods. More involved include camping, fishing/boating, mini-golfing, exploring new towns or taking a vacation.