Here are some fun summer activities for homeschoolers:
- Camping. It’s a great bonding activity for your family, and very educational. You can enjoy looking at nature, cook your food over a fire, and talk late into the night.
- Go stargazing. Look through a telescope. Get outside the city, and put red cellophane over your flashlight. You can sometimes see the entire Milky Way galaxy. Look at constellations and planets, or the craters on the moon.
- If you are near a lake or the ocean, play in the sand on the beach. (For more information about sand play, click here.) You can also create a whole topographical map in your backyard, using the hose to put water into your rivers.
- If your yard has a hill or a slant, you can set up a slip and slide by cutting strong black trash bags open and spraying water on it. Then set the hose on the top, and slide down.
- Swimming. The summer is a great time to take swim lessons. You can go to a local swimming pool.
- Build a tree house or a fort in your backyard.
- Study underwater sea creatures. Go to an aquarium. Visit the ocean and collect seashells. Notice the tides going in and out, and look carefully in the tide pools.
- Have a water balloon fight or a water gun fight.
- Go to a theme park as a family. Ride on rides together. It’s a very bonding family experience. Or you can go to a water park with wave pools, slides, and tunnels.
- Go yard saling. You can find lots of inexpensive fun activities for your children to do, including crafts and outdoor toys. You can also find hands-on items for your next unit study or time period in history.
- Pick strawberries, cherries, or other fruit at a local farm. Delicious right after being picked.
- Make chocolate bananas. (Dip frozen bananas in almond bark after stabbing them with popsicle sticks.)
- Ride bicycles as a family.
- Go hiking. Nature is beautiful in the summer. Identify plants, insects, animal tracks, etc. (You can get fold-out laminated cards with the most common animal tracks, for example. You don’t have to carry a whole book with you.)
- Have your kids put on a talent show with another homeschool family. Serve popcorn to the audience. (Mime act, play an instrument, sing, do a skit, have a fashion show, magic show, etc.)
- Make a sheet tent outside, tying ropes between trees and throwing sheets over them. Make a city in your backyard with pop-up tents, teepees, and sheets thrown over card tables.
- Play board games.
- Draw with chalk on the sidewalk.
- Go see fireworks on the Fourth of July. (Do it even if it means the kids will be staying up later. If possible, have younger kids take a nap in the afternoon before going.)
- Barbecue. Steak, shish kabobs, corn on the cob, grilled chicken, etc. Everything tastes better on the grill.
- Run through the sprinkler. (We made our own car wash contraption based on a Family Fun design. We used PVC pipe, drilled holes in it, and stuck it together. The water sprayed in all directions, and it was fun.)
- Picnics. You can take a picnic almost anywhere, including parks or the beach.
- Play imaginatively in the backyard, using walkie-talkies, or pretending to be in the wilderness. Kids need down time to pretend.
- Read a book. Sit in a hammock and have crushed ice drinks with bendy straws and umbrellas while reading your fun book or magazine.
- Go on more field trips that you don’t have time for during the school year. Go to a factory, or visit the fire station. Go to a Civil War Re-enactment or a Renaissance Faire. These take place outdoors in the summer. Shakespeare in the Park is fun to watch, since kids can have a picnic while watching the theatrical production. Another outdoor event is a summer symphony concert. Visit museums in your area. Look in your yellow pages for fun places to go in your town. Be a tourist in your own town.
If you would like to print out this list, here is the PDF:
Summer Activities for Homeschoolers
Here is the webinar with more details on each of these summer activities:
