50 Fun Things To Do with Your Kids Before School Starts

Has summer already flown by for you and your kiddos? I know it has for my family, and I wanted to make our summer extra special. So I was on a mission to make a list of things that would help me do just that.

After scouring social media and some of my favorite blogs for some ideas, I also decided that some field trips were in order since they were some of the things I loved most as a child. I found some friends in our town who wanted to join us, so I made a few calls and got everything scheduled. You would be surprised just how excited your local post office, grocery store, bakery, and florist are to host your kids and teach them about what it means to be in that profession.

With this list, you can make the last long days of summer even more memorable. While some of the suggestions take more time and planning, most can be done pretty quickly. You can even do a few of them in one day, like going on a picnic and feeding the ducks.

50 Fun Things To Do with Your Kids Before School Starts

1. Have a campout in the backyard
2. Go on a picnic
3. Feed the ducks
4. Make your own sidewalk chalk
5. Host a lemonade stand and/or bake sale for a local charity

6. Play water balloon baseball
7. Do a backwards dinner starting with dessert and ending with appetizers
8. Have a shaving cream fight
9. Hide some goodies, make a map, and go on a treasure hunt
10. Go camping
11. Visit a local museum
12. Make snow cones
13. Visit a national park or monument
14. Go on a hike
15. Go to a rodeo or demolition derby
16. Go to a garage sale
17. Make an outdoor library
18. Attend a library story time
19. Have a spa day

20. Make homemade ice cream
21. Pick fresh berries
22. Visit your local farmers’ market

23. Make special ice cubes (hopefully it encourages them to stay hydrated!)
24. Dance in the rain
25. Go on a grocery store tour

26. Have an ice cream tasting night
27. Go on a family bike ride
28. Make dirt cup desserts
29. Visit your local flower shop and learn what it means to be a florist

30. Make homemade pretzels
31. Read a chapter book as a family
32. Bake a fresh berry pie or cobbler
34. Go to the nearest beach or lake for a swim
35. Tour your local post office

36. Visit a planetarium or go stargazing in your backyard
37. Make an ice block treasure
38. Play glow stick ring toss
39. Make cupcakes in ice cream cones

40. Have a tea party
41. Have a game night with your neighbors
42. Make sock puppets (Or other sock crafts!)
43. Do a puppet show
44. Visit your local bakery for a tour

45. Make flower crowns
46. Take that growing pile of cardboard Amazon boxes and build a fort
47. Make a table cloth playhouse (I love this one from Centsational Girl)
48. Do face painting
49. Take your favorite book and make a themed party around it (We did the If You Give a Mouse a Cookie book series & made the treats to go along with the books)
50. Have a book dinner (Using books like Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs or Dragons Love Tacos, etc.)

A version of this story was originally published in 2015.