200 Plus Summertime Activities for Kids

Copyright 2002 Deborah Taylor-Hough All rights reserved. hometown.aol.com/dsimple/

Since we don't use the phrase "I'm bored!" in our home, we don't hear our kids complaining about being bored during those long days at home during the summer months. But ... I have to admit that we're still an incredibly normal family. Even without the "b-word" in their vocabulary, there are still those times when my three children (ages 15, 11 and 7) just seem to be at a total loss for something constructive to do.

On one of those "I-can't-think-of-anything-to-do" days, I had my children sit down and make a list of everything they could do completely on their own without parental help. After they brain-stormed about it for over an hour (which was a good anti-boredom activity itself!), the kids had a list of about fifty activities. Surprisingly, they even included a few household chores like dusting and weeding. I asked for input from some other moms, and now my children have a list of over two hundred ideas to beat summertime boredom. And the list just seems to keep growing!

Thanks to the suggestion of one mom, we've put each item on this list onto individual pieces of paper, placed the papers into a container, and when the children need inspiration for an activity, they choose two or three papers and then decide which idea they want to do, either as a group or individually. The mom who suggested pulling ideas out of a container told me she found this method more helpful than giving the kids a huge list of possibilities. By narrowing the choices down to just two or three, it was easier for the kids to pick out the one that sounded the best to them.

200+ Ideas for Summertime (or anytime!) Activities

In no particular order, here's our current (but continually growing!) list of activities:

1) ride bikes
2) roller skate
3) play basketball / shoot baskets
4) play board games
5) make a tent out of blankets
6) squirt with hoses
7) run through the sprinkler
8) jump rope
9) read books
10) blow bubbles
11) make homemade play dough
12) play with play dough
13) press flowers
14) do crafts with pressed flowers
15) write a letter to a relative, friend or pen pal
16) clean bedroom
17) vacuum livingroom
18) clean bathroom
19) make a craft
20) draw
21) color