Summer Activity Ideas for Kids

School’s out for summer, and for many of us that means more time with your kids at home! Such a joy all its own 🙂 You might get opportunities to play at the pool or the beach or go on a family trip, but sometimes you might find yourself searching for ideas of how to spend the ample time you have with your little cuties. So we’ve compiled our list of top things to do with kids at home this summer. No school supply list needed (but we’ll add a list of our fav go-to things to have on hand just in case).

Fav Summer Activity Items

• Water balloons
• Buckets
• Kraft paper roll
• Markers
• Magnatiles (not specific to summer, but our kids are always coming up with new things to build!)

Soak up the Sun: Outdoor activities

1. Camp in your backyard

Written by WonderCow co-founder Erica Diepersloot

Switch up your nightly routine (and morning) with a night under the stars – in your own backyard! Set up a tent or let your little ones build a fort they can sleep in, because does it really get better than that? Complete the night with s’mores by a firepit, rolling out sleeping bags, and waking up with the sunrise. Your kids will think they hit the backyard jackpot, and you won’t have to travel anywhere. Also, if you need to – there is no shame in actually just sleeping inside once all the little ones have fallen asleep 😉 Carry them in once their eyelids are heavy and all will be well. 

2. Water Balloon Baseball

What you need:

• Plastic Bat (we strongly recommend a plastic bat for this one!)
• Bases (or something to mark them – paper plates work great)

How to play:

1. Designate teams and split up among the bases and set batting order.
2. Play baseball like normal, but with a water balloon instead of a ball.
3. To tag the batting player out, you get to throw a water balloon instead of a ball (fun splashes all around!)
4. If the balloon bursts, the batting team scores a home run.
5. Watch your kids have a blast while staying cool in the heat!

3. Water Balloon Dodgeball

1. Divide kids into two teams.
2. Set up a court to play on, dividing in the middle. Each team stays on their side.
3. Each team starts with an equal number of water balloons
4. Objective: Throw water balloons at the opposing team to hit all their players.
5. When a player is hit by a balloon, they are out.
6. The team with the last player standing (and likely the driest!) wins the game!

It was life-changing to discover these self-sealing water balloons… can’t believe we used to have to tie ours one by one by hand!

Another option is using reusable water balloons— lots of fun options out there!

4. Obstacle Course

 

Set up different levels of obstacle courses for your kids. One of our go-to courses in our backyard is:

• Kick a soccer goal
• Run to the trampoline, then five “star jumps” (we learned this at gymnastics and it’s simple as it sounds: jump high with your arms and legs outstretched… you look like a star!)
• Run to the slide, then slide down twice
• Kitty crawl (like a bear crawl on your hands and knees, but includes meowing:)) to the hula hoop station
• Hop in and out of the hula hoop five times

Add in army crawls, hopscotch, spinning five fast circles, and jump rope. Make it a competition by timing each participant and see who can get through the fastest!

Another variant if you have a big enough group is to try out the classic bucket brigade you maybe did as a kid… we don’t think that one’s timed out yet 🙂

Beat the Heat: Indoor Activities

1. Color Time: BIG Roll Edition

 

Switch up good old-fashioned coloring with one big long roll of paper. Spread it out over the length of your dinner table and hand over the markers. We’ve heard it said that anything can be more fun when introduced in a new format… the amount of space your kids will have to work with offers a whole new range of possibilities.

We even added an element of “summer school” to our big drawing time recently. While the girls colored away, I casually dropped in a few little addition problems (4+3= ___ ), along with some sight words. You know when they say, “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life”? Coloring on a big paper roll is kind of like that when math problems are brought in. It doesn’t feel like schoolwork when it’s next to the castle you’re drawing!

2. Play School, but role reversal

Let your child be the teacher, and you’re now the trusty student. Encourage them to teach you an activity they LOVE to do, and then watch them giggle when you act like you truly don’t know how to do it. Let them be the leader – it’s a fun reframe for them, and usually for us parents too.

3. Scavenger Hunt

Create a fun check-list of regular home items, and turn it into an activity where your kids search for them. You can of course adjust the challenge of levels. Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Red marker
• Hair tie
• Something shaped like a square
• An item in their favorite color
• Something that starts with “T”

You get the idea 🙂 You can try it out as a race or if you’re trying to encourage teamwork, maybe have the kids work together to find the items.

Kitchen Time: Summer Recipes Edition 

1. Super Smoothie

 

Blend together some of your favorite summer fruits for a refreshing (and nutritious) treat for you and your little ones. Remember to add in WonderCow colostrum powder for some added health benefits of course 😉 Here’s a summer spin-off of our family’s go-to smoothie recipe:

Ingredients

• Handful fresh spinach
• 1 cup fresh orange juice
• 2 bananas
• 1 cup frozen or fresh pineapple (you can also use mango or any other tropical fruit!)
• 2 scoops WonderCow Colostrum Powder
• ½ cup ice

Blend it all up and pour into colorful cups. Add a fruit garnish and a straw, and your kids can pretend you’re all on a tropical getaway together.

Bonus: Freeze the extra smoothie mix in a popsicle mold like this for a sweet, refreshing treat the next day!

2. Make-your-own BBQ Skewers

Set it up as a fun activity for the kids to pick what they want on their own skewer (of course provide some healthy options, like marinated chicken, chopped onions or bell peppers). After the grill, place these skewers on a bed of rice or salad, and don’t forget the homemade tzatziki sauce on top!

WonderZiki (Tzatziki Recipe)

Ingredients

• 1 cup whole Greek yogurt
• ½ tablespoon minced garlic
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• ¼ cup cucumber – finely chopped (or grate it with a cheese grater!)
• Lemon juice from ½ lemon
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 2 scoops WonderCow Unflavored Colostrum Powder

Mix all ingredients into a bowl and keep cold. And pretend summer is never ever ending.

3. Blueberry Muffins

Thank you Cookie & Kate for this recipe! Blueberry muffins really can’t disappoint, and this recipe is just simple enough to get your little ones involved for a fun summer activity inside.

 

Ingredients

• 1 ¾ cups whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp fine sea salt
• ¼ tsp ground cinnamon (optional)
• ⅓ cup melted coconut oil (or extra-virgin olive oil)
• ½ cup honey or maple syrup
• 2 eggs, preferably at room temperature
• 1 cup plain Greek yogurt*
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup (6 ounces) blueberries, fresh or frozen
• 1 teaspoon flour
• 1 tbsp turbinado sugar (also called raw sugar), for sprinkling on top

Recipe

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease your muffin tin with butter or nonstick spray.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine your dry ingredients. In a separate mixing bowl, combine the wet ingredients.
3. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix with a big spoon, just until combined. In a small bowl, toss the blueberries with the remaining 1 teaspoon flour (this helps prevent the blueberries from sinking to the bottom). Gently fold the blueberries into the batter.
4. Divide the batter evenly between the 12 muffin cups. Sprinkle the tops of the muffins with turbinado sugar. Bake the muffins for 16 to 19 minutes, or until the muffins are golden on top and a toothpick inserted into a muffin comes out clean.
5. Place the muffin tin on a cooling rack to cool. You might need to run a butter knife along the outer edge of the muffins to loosen them from the pan. Extra muffins can last in the fridge for up to 5 days. Butter them up and enjoy!

So whether you’re packing bags for a trip, splashing in the pool, lake, or ocean, or soaking up the extra time with your family all at home together, we hope you’re inspired and equipped with fun new ways to play with your kids this summer. Tag us if you do any of these – we’d love to see you! @wondercow