Fun Summer Activities For Kids

Kids are wonderful to have around, but an entire summer without the normal structure of the school day can sometimes get challenging. To fill the long summer days, it is handy to have a list of fun activities that will interest children of many ages. Here are some great ideas of summer fun activities for kids.

By: vastateparksstaff

Bug Boxes

This is a field trip, either in your own back yard, a park or somewhere else where the kids can get down in the dirt and look for bugs. Before heading out, have the kids put together their own Bug Boxes. Here's what they'll need:

• Clear jars with lids and breathing holes poked in the lids (canning jars work great!)

• Plastic tweezers to pick up bugs

• Magnifying glass

• Eye dropper to provide water

Encourage your children to look for interesting bugs. This is a great opportunity to teach them about the environment, botany, and catch and release. Make sure they wear clothes you won’t mind them getting dirty and wet, because it is guaranteed they will. You may want to bring along some towels for the car seats, too.

Hike Some Trails

There are some great trails throughout the United States, especially in the National Park System, that are just waiting for you and your kids to discover them. Trails are perfect for family hiking and each trail is marked with the level of difficulty, how long it is, the type of trail, etc. This system makes is much easier for your family to identify which trails you can handle and which to avoid. Always be prepared when hiking by taking water, snacks, a map, and some basic first aid supplies. Bring a bag for trash. Always let someone else know where you’re going and when you plan on returning. Always take a cell phone with a full charge. While you’re hiking, teach your children about the woods by asking them to be quiet and listen for the sounds of the woods. Tell them how woodland creatures are frightened by loud “people noises”, so they must use their quiet voices and they might just see a deer or chipmunk or even a black bear.

Nurture a Love of Reading

Some children see reading as drudgery, but this might be your opportunity to change their thinking. Reading can be the doorway to a world of fantasy and faraway lands. Books can take your kids where no man has gone before or back to when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

Whatever inspires them, there is sure to be a great book about it, so make regular trips to the library to stock up for rainy days.

If your kids already love to read (Yea!!), get them together with their other book-loving friends and host a summer book club. They can pick the genre, an author or however they choose to do. You can provide some general guidance, but let the kids run the club and see how they do with it. Discussing books with kids can be a lot of fun and really quite interesting. It also encourages the children to read even more and they seem to get more out of the books. If their school publishes a reading list, that is a good place to start.

These are some great summer fun activities for kids to help fill the long summer days. Here’s to a great summer with our kids!

Author : Laura Greening is a mom and a part time wedding planner. She loves to write about wedding planning and preparation. She is currently working as a consultant for MyKidStudio, a flower girl dress store, based in Los Angeles, CA.