Summer Enrichment Activities
And on the 9th day of Summer…the kids said “I’m bored” for the last time! If you are a parent looking for ideas to keep your kids productively busy below is a list of options for my children to visit every time the ‘b-word’ approaches their lips. You will notice that I divide up the options into three categories: what they can do alone, what they can do with an adult and what they can do with technology [see below picture]. My hope is that I can continue to develop their agency and independence with these fun summer activity options that they can do alone. In our home I try to limit use of technology as much as possible-especially after additional screen time required by distance learning this past Spring-so these will remain as optional “treats” over the course of the summer. In an effort to continue to teach them digital citizenship, I intentionally created technology options for them that are somewhat educational and don’t require a ton of supervision. These ideas are all in the wheelhouse of PBL-lite and could be easily built out into project ideas for learning in the fall or enrichment learning this summer.
Activities without an adult
- Create an “at-home” restaurant dining experience for your family. You might include a menu, recipes, grocery shopping list.
- Start a dog-walking service/business for your neighborhood
- Do a sidewalk chalk mural or a surprise art installation in a friend’s driveway
- Learn new songs on your keyboard via youtube
- Create a Nerf gun shooting range/course
- Collect and paint rocks and put together an art installation to share with the neighborhood
- Create a bike scavenger hunt for friends
- Make and sell COVID-care items on your Etsy shop
- Create a miniature golf course in the house/backyard
- Collect a wildflower bouquet from the neighborhood
- Collect and create a mini-succulent garden
- Set up a campsite in the backyard and have a camp-out
- Have a car wash
- Create a coordinate a cooking show with friends
- Make jewelry for friends, family
- Create a race track out of recycled materials
- No-bake recipes (ie., trail mix, protein balls)
- Create a recipe-in-a-jar (I stole the idea from HERE)
Activities with an adult
- Baking (I’m excited to check THIS out!)
- Fishing
- Mountain Biking
- Skateboard the boardwalk
- Create, innovate new face masks
- Nature hikes
Tech Treats
- Use Chatterpix to bring something to life in our house
- Design your own trading cards
- Manage the dog account on Instagram
- Create your own private youtube channel
- Create a kids guide to our community that could be used for visitors
- Create a giving campaign
- Design a postcard on Canva and mail to friends, family
- Record a “Luxury home living”episode with your cardboard home design for a squishamallow
- Create a Thinglink with a picture of a favorite memory, sports breakdown or a favorite place
- Create a COVID-19 phonebook on Shutterfly that captures how our family grew
- Write a summer RV kids recommendation blog
More good stuff
And in case you missed it, HERE is a list of PBL-ish ideas for parents that I shared last summer on social media. And be sure to check out my other parents resources:
- PBL for parents e-course
- My store on TpT with projects for parents to run at home
- Leaning on sports to survive COVID-19
- Tips for Working Parents
- PBL no-tech matrix