Summer is here and that means there’s more daylight and more free time for the younger members of your family. While it feels like there are endless possibilities for summertime activities, we thought we’d share our ten favorites to add more inspiration to your planning for the season.
1. Plant Fruits and Vegetables
We’ve previously talked about the importance of green in the home and even which herbs you might try growing inside. Now it’s time to lean into the best time of year to grow plants. Let different members of your family pick what they want to grow so that they can take ownership of making sure those plants flourish.
2. Bake Treats and/or Make Popsicles
While you can use some of the fruits you planted to make purees and juices for making popsicles later in the season, in the meantime you can buy some fruits or juices or yogurt to make some fun frozen treats.
Baking can be intimidating to some, but it can be a lot of fun too. Whether you want to bake some bread or some sweet treats, there are plenty of recipes out there for every skill level.
3. Go to a Festival or a Fair
We can’t seem to stop talking about food at the moment, but that’s a great reason to go to a summer festival or fair. But beyond that there’s also the chance to learn, meet others, and see different parts of your county, state, or region.
4. Camp
The easiest version of this is the time-honored tradition of the backyard camp trip. No advance planning needed, and you can still have the fun of sleeping outdoors with the comfort of knowing a hot shower is just a few steps away.
But if you do want to get outdoors there are plenty of places that will truly surprise and enchant you, often closer than you think.
5. Stargazing
Speaking of getting outdoors, stargazing is something you might consider trying out this season. If you’re in a dense urban location, this might be more challenging, but if you go camping or decide to make a stargazing excursion to a darker area, you’ll be astonished by what you can see with just a little bit of help from a lens or two.
6. Fly a Kite
While “fly a kite” has somehow worked its way into the language as a very soft form of “get lost” flying a kite is not as straightforward as it might seem. But if the wind is right and you’ve got some of the basics down, it can lead to a magical afternoon of simply watching your kite(s) bounce on the waves of the wind.
7. Feed Birds
Different bird feed attracts different birds who may be more or less willing to be secretly viewed by you, even from the “safety” of a window and a slightly drawn window curtain or set of blinds. Think about putting a bird feeder out and watch as your winged neighbors come to check out the new “restaurant” in town.
8. Make Crafts
Whether it’s paper flowers or origami, somehow arts and crafts seem to be more fun when they aren’t part of an assignment for school.
9. Start a Business
While the lemonade stand is the classic summer business (because it’s easy!) there are any number of variants on it. Go back to the baked treats or frozen popsicles, or even the bounty from a garden later in the season.
Or what about the origami that you already made? If it’s fancy enough, you might be able to sell them as little gifts.
10. Paint Rocks
While not all rocks will be an ideal canvas for your imagination, rocks are certainly not hard to find and can offer all sorts of opportunities for creativity.
This content originally appeared in our monthly Open Calendar Club newsletter.
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