21 Best Summer Activities For Young Children

I can’t believe school starts next month already. But let’s not talk about that yet. Summer is in full effect and I’ve been providing you with the best weekend activities and water activities to make the most of your summer as a family. Today, I’m giving you the 21 best summer activities for young children.

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1. Build a fairy garden. We bought our daughter this fairy garden and she loves all the little details. She checks on it often and it adds another element to planting flowers!

2. Enroll your child in swimming lessons. My kids are almost 7 years old and although they are more understanding of water safety, they aren’t great at swimming yet. We enrolled in swim lessons at our community pool for a low cost. It’s worth it and they enjoy every minute of it!

3. Make friendship bracelets. We recently purchased a rubber band bracelet kit for our son and daughter. By the end of the day, they made several friendship bracelets for their friends at church. It’s a great activity to improve fine motor skills and the whole family can get involved. Although, I will add that I had trouble and my kids had to help me!

4. Make s’mores. Need I say more? If you need a backyard fire pit, I highly recommend this fire pit. But there are certainly many different options depending on your price range.

5. Add soap to their water table. If you have a water table, simply add soap. You will be presently surprised how much longer your children will remain occupied. Sometimes, it’s the little things.

6. Attend a minor league baseball game. If you have the opportunity and live relatively close, head to the ballpark! Tickets are typically inexpensive and minor league baseball games are much more geared towards kids. Our kids love attending and if you don’t last the whole game, that’s okay. It probably didn’t cost too much to begin with! Also, the crowds are more family friendly. A win-win scenario!

7. Catch lightning bugs. I still have memories of catching lightning bugs in my backyard as it got dark. If you have a bug jar to collect them, even better!

8. Fly a kite. This one requires much patience, and a little bit of wind. But, if you catch the wind just right, go ahead and watch the smiles on your child’s face. It’s fantastic!

9. Set up a car wash. I don’t know about your kids, but mine love to wash our cars with us. If your kids have a push car or a Power Wheels, you can even have them wash their car while you wash yours!

10. Set up a lemonade stand. My kids are at the age where they are starting to learn the importance of money and that it does not grow on trees. It’s cute when your kids begin to think like entrepreneurs and how to make a few quarters.

11. Sign up for an organized sport. When you have more than one child signed up on a sports team, things get crazy. We sign our son up for soccer in the summer and our daughter plays field hockey in the fall. This makes scheduling a little easier. But participating in organized sports has done wonders for our kids. They have gained confidence, new friends and found a new sport that they love.

12. Make clay creations. This clay is great. You form it and build your creation. After that, you put it in the oven for a few minutes and it hardens, so you can permanently display your creations!

13. Make paper airplanes. Set up a contest. Whoever designs the coolest paper airplane wins. Throw it the farthest and win a special treat!

14. Make a parachute for LEGO figures. You can easily make a parachute using a coffee filter or even tissue paper.

15. Have a picnic. We love packing lunches and visiting different playgrounds or parks.

16. Take a one day road trip. If we get the chance to take a road trip, you know we’re heading to the beach!

17. Go berry picking. Look into any local farms in your area. We have one in particular that lets us pick blueberries, strawberries and any fruit that is in season. Our kids absolutely love it and it’s a fun family activity that we enjoy doing together.

18. Take an evening walk with flashlights. This is really fun to do in the fall, when it gets dark out early. We love doing this around Halloween and Christmas, when lights and decorations are set out in our neighborhood.

19. Climb trees. This is just fun and brings back many childhood memories.

20. Set up a toddler pool with a slide. We have a little slide in our backyard. We bought a cheap toddler pool, filled it with water and put it at the bottom of the slide. Voila! My kids were occupied and cooled off for hours! Check out Heart + Home to find the best toddler pool for the summer.

21. Play with sidewalk chalk. This one is simple. But sometimes, you don’t have to overthink fun activities. When my kids were learning the alphabet, we would draw the letters A through Z all over our driveway. Then, we would shout out a letter and our kids had to find it on the driveway and run over to it. Be creative and you can have a lot of fun with chalk!