Summer Activities For Your Kids (FREE Summer Checklist Included!)

School is out and summertime is here! Are you ready to spend more time with your kids?

For those of you who just screamed, “NOOOOOOO!”, hold on, I’ve got a few ideas for you. 🙂

Planning Your Days

It’s easy to get stressed about being home with the kids all summer…unless you have a plan. It doesn’t have to be a detailed plan at all. To provide a variety of activities, try turning the days of the week into specialty days. Sticking to a schedule of specialty days will help make your summer more organized. (Just don’t get stressed out if the schedule needs to adjust for life happenings!) Here are a few ideas to get you started:

MONDAY– Call it Marvelous Monday, Make It Monday, or Money Monday: Okay, say you’ve picked “Marvelous Monday“. The day includes writing down five things, drawing a picture, taking two photos, reading about, or coming up with a pantomime about all things that are marvelous! (Think writing, drawing, reading, and hands-on activities.) Make-It Monday, of course, would be a designated day for some type of arts and craft activity or making something in the kitchen (cooking or baking). Money Monday could be finding change or earning money. Collect the money in a jar and every Monday count it, talk about what you are saving for, etc. Don’t do all three, just pick one that works for you.

Getting the picture? Oh wait, add Movie Monday!

Use the above ideas and apply to the following days of the week. I’ve made suggestions for what you can call each day and most are self-explanatory (e.g. “To the Library Tuesday” or “Talent Show Thursday”, etc.).

TUESDAY– How about Terrific Tuesday, Travel Tuesday, Theme Tuesday, or To the Library Tuesday.

WEDNESDAY- Try Wacky Wednesday, Wash & Clean Wednesday, or Water Wednesday.

THURSDAY- Take your pick from Thankful Thursday, Take a Trip Thursday, Toy Donation Thursday, or Talent Show Thursday.

FRIDAY- Call it Fantastic Friday, Friend Visit Friday, Friendly Friday, Food Friday, or FUN Friday!

Now, grab a calendar or your planner and pick a name for your weekdays. Then, pencil in a few activities you know that will work well for you and your family. For instance, call family or friends to set up a day of the week to visit or have a play day. Pick out a few craft ideas (check out my Pinterest board “Little People Ideas” HERE) and write down the supplies you might need. Spend a little time researching your favorite places for times of operation and special events (e.g. libraries usually have summer reading times and/or activities).

Spoiler Alert: I may or may not have a list of 46 specific activities for summer for you. But first, let’s talk about getting your kids to do some chores this summer!

Making a Chore Day Fun

I was one of those crazy moms who actually looked forward to being with my kids during the summer. I attribute that to my Mom. She made growing up fun (which I realized also influenced how I taught in the classroom much later). For instance, she had a day designated for cleaning. I don’t know too many kids that love to clean, but my Mom made it entertaining and FUN! She wrote chores on long strips of paper, folded them up, and put them in a bowl. She would make my brother and I close our eyes and select a slip of paper. When you completed a chore, you came back to draw again until the slips of paper disappeared.

It was Mom’s attitude, too. She acted all excited like doing chores was the best thing since sliced bread. (That’s a mom saying for sure!) I can just hear her asking in that sing-song sort of voice, “Guess what daaaaay it is?”. She was smart enough to tap into my brother and my competitive natures, too. Hence, the game chores became one to win in our minds. Yep, we were that dumb. Or…at least by the time we caught on, chores were just a part of our routine. The point being, if you lead joyfully (get it?) your followers (or children) will catch your ‘tude!

My Mom had an uncanny knack of choosing age-appropriate chores. If you’re not really sure what chores your kids can handle, here’s a simple rule of thumb. Kids have an attention span about as many minutes as their age. A two to three-year-old? That’s two to three minutes. Ten to twelve-year-olds…that’s 10-12 minutes. The key is to start out while your children are young with simple chores. You are training them to be responsible. More importantly, they will also be acquiring life skills to help make them successful in life. If you haven’t implemented chores yet, please start!

Age Appropriate Chores

My brother and I are 13 months apart (*cough * cough* he’s older) so my Mom put all the chores into one bowl. If your children are a different age range put the same amount of slips into separate bowls for each – only make them age appropriate. (Side note: My brother and I also have two younger sisters, 7 and 14 years younger respectively! My Mom always said she packed school lunches for almost 30 years!! Go, Mom!)

You can search the internet for “age appropriate chores” and find many different lists so I’m not going to provide them here. What I would love for you to do though, is create your own household chores for your children with an end goal in mind. What do I mean? Well, think about what skills you want your children to know how to do in life, and then write them down. The next step is to pick one skill and ask yourself, how can I break this down for each age?

For example, you want them to know how to eventually do their own laundry. For a 2-3-year-old the first step might be taking their dirty clothes and putting them in the clothes bin. A 4-5-year-old can help sort the laundry (sorting is also a great pre-requisite for many math, language, and science skills in school later!). 6-7-year-olds can start folding and putting laundry away and 10-12-year-olds can operate the washer/dryer machines. Write down the age-appropriate step(s) for each one of your children. And finally, repeat for each skill from your list.

As a retired principal, my elementary school housed a Life Skills unit for the district. My handi-capable kids would be with me from Pre-K to 3rd grade and of course, I fell head over heels in love with each of them. If you have a child with a disability, they still need to be included in learning life skills on the home front. If you need advice, ask your school’s teachers or principal for help. Keep your expectations high, they can learn much!

I asked my daughter what she remembered about chores and how she felt about them when she was growing up. She remembered washing dishes (no dishwasher at the time…horrors!), laundry, dusting, and cleaning her room (she said she did awful at that one!). And…there wasn’t anything she remembers not liking to do. Yay! Music to my ears. Brownie points for me not scarring her for life. 🙂 She also was quick to talk about the other activities we did. Crazy hat day, writing spelling words in chocolate pudding, going to the library a lot (TK = teacher kid!), cooking, baking (she didn’t consider as chores), and being outside all the time, too. (She is still texting me about what we did as a family, but I’ll cut this off here…HA!)

Summer Checklist for Kids

PLUS…46 Ideas for Summer Fun!

My husband and I have been privileged to keep the youngest grandson every spring break, Christmas vacation, and usually sometime during the summer each year. I’ve made chore charts for him and paid him for the chores (as a parent I didn’t pay my kids). This past summer I did something different. I made him a “Summer Checklist” with a list of 46 “Ideas for Summer Fun”. I’d like to share it with you as a FREE download. (see below) I’ve included in the file pages in color and also in B&W in keeping with your printer ink capabilities. PLUS…the “Ideas for Summer Fun” page is editable by you! You can customize by inserting the ideas listed that you know will fit into your family dynamics and budget. Then, add ideas of your own.

Our grandson, 10 years old at the time, finished a “Summer Checklist” and picked Christmas in July for his first activity from the “Ideas for Summer Fun” page. We found our small Christmas tree and had tons of fun decorating it. And of course, small goofy presents were wrapped. Honestly, I’m not a big fan of decorating trees and I definitely stink at wrapping presents; however, we threw a Christmas centerpiece (yes, it went on the tree), added a few other items, didn’t even put bows or ribbon on the presents, and we were thrilled! It was a stress-free, fun-filled Christmas in July! (Idea: In the spirit of giving, have your kids create gifts for one another and then wrap to put under the tree.)

Hopefully, this will get you started on some ideas you can do with your kids this summer. Download your free 10-page “Summer Checklist for Kids” by clicking the picture below. (And don’t forget to check back periodically the “GET YOUR FREEBIES” link on my website HERE.)

What summer memories do you have or that you have created with your kids? Share with us in the comments!

Lead joyfully,

Gail Boulton