Last Friday, Tony gave ten ideas for activities to do with your kids this summer and asked you guys for more suggestions. Here are some of our favorite responses!
Reader Stephanie Parkinson suggests what she calls a “wet day”:
I like to have a supply of wet day activities to hand. This usually includes paints pencils, playdoh and other craft materials. The messier the better as it keeps them entertained longer!
Ashley Allain of HyperHomeschool suggested a handful of ideas:
We plan to go to the pool, picnic at the park, have playdates with friends, participate in the summer reading program at our local library, take nature walks at the local parks and enjoy their splash parks for a cool down & visit some area museums. For our 4yo birthday, we purchased a family membership to the zoo and aquarium in New Orleans. That will provide lots of fun throughout the entire year
Super commenter Haidy had several educational suggestions:
1- The library, we have a summer reading program where the kids register (and get a book for free) and when they read 10 books, they get to join a party and get another free book. My kids love it!
2- Vacation bible school. In fact, I leave the kids there cause I know they will learn something good and I get to take sometime off!
3- I also bought my kids workbooks. I usually assign them 8-10 pages to do in their work book in the morning. They get to play on their Wii if they do it. It is another way to keep their memory fresh with math, science and English and it is one good way to fill their time.
Our own Meghan Harvey recommends checking your local Parks & Recreation website:
You mentioned park, but we’ve decided on a fun summer plan that expands the whole park idea. We visited the Parks & Recreation website for our hometown and printed out the list of every single park in town. There are 27 neighborhood parks (not including sports parks & wilderness trails/open spaces) in town. We intend on visiting every single one and taking pictures of each and deciding which parks are the best in town. This will be a great way to explore neighborhoods we don’t usually hang out in, find some new cool parks and really pay attention to each one to see how they compare with one another. The cost of the summer park exploration/project? $0 And it’s something we can do the whole summer.
Photo by Shopping Diva.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for all of these wonderful ideas. I have also found that going to a state park and renting a cabin can
be fun and rather cheap. Cindi
Thank you for all the great ideas! Living in a city there are whole websites designed for free activities for kids but even in small towns I would make sure you are reading the parks and recs guides!
My favorite activity as a kid was very inexpensive: wiffle ball! About $3 can get a good bat and ball set from a dollar store or department store, and kids will get very good exercise playing outside. Plus, plastic balls are very safe, thus giving parents peace of mind.
I'm ready for a game right now.