When it comes to family fun, summer is one of the best times of year. The weather is beautiful, school is out, and family play is at an all-time high. For parents looking for new ideas of things to do with restless kids, here are a few fun options that can be great fun for the whole family.
Make Your Own Water Carnival
Don’t have a pool? No problem. A hose and a DIY spirit are all you need to create all sorts of fun things for a homemade water carnival. Buckets poured through colanders, sprinklers, water balloons and sponge balls are just some of the fun to have. Not creative? Discover tons of homemade water toys on Pinterest to get you started.
Grow Food
The biggest cure for veggie-picky kids is to give them the chance to grow their very own garden. Involve your kids in every step, from digging in the dirt to regular watering to harvesting veggies. As an added bonus, you can make their very own vegetables and fruit open to eat anytime, and limit other snacks to certain times. The freedom to eat them whenever they want is often enough to create veggie lovers of all of them. Don’t have a yard? Not a problem. All you need is a balcony and a container.
Turn a Vacation into an Exploration
Summer trips are fun, but kids are often bored during long drives, and endless cries of “are we there yet” can be exasperating for parents. A little pre-planning can change this dynamic for everyone, however. Spend some time with a road atlas and track your trip. Consider renting a Fretz RV to simplify your lodging plans. Plan your stops along the way, and find interesting things to discover. Work with your kids’ interest, or help them discover others. Hunt for fossils, trace famous historical routes while listening to historical fiction about those areas, and have kids draw pictures of how things used to look, and then compare them to modern day. Shake it up and take a different return route, with different stops. Instead of hating road trips, your kids won’t be able to wait until the next one.
Explore Nature
Whether you have city kids or country kids, there is lots of nature to explore. If your kids are a little intimidated, get them excited by creating scavenger hunts. Whether you live by the woods or near a park, bring them a list of items to find (or pictures of items for non-readers) and have them collect as many as they can. For a less invasive version, give them a camera and have them collect pictures instead of items.
No matter where you live, there are a million ways to explore summer. The most important parts of family time are to be together, and be open to fun, no matter where it comes from.
