Arts & Crafts Family Life

50 Fantastic Ways to Fight Summer Boredom

Summer vacation has settled upon us like a thin film of sunscreen and sticky popsicle drips, and I’m already tired of hearing those plaintive strains of, “I’m booooored.” My take on it? Boredom is good for kids. They don’t actually need constant entertainment, and in fact letting them stew in their boredom juices for a while forces them to get creative on their own. I firmly believe that kids grow from boredom. But realistically, it’s going to be a long summer, so if you’re ready to pull out your hair, I’ve got some ideas you can suggest to your bored little darlings.

Scroll down to the bottom to pin all 50 ideas!

1.  Design and create your own board game.

2.  Draw a hopscotch board with chalk and get hopping.

3.  Write a storybook.

4.  Draw your own comic book.

5.  Clean your room. (This is my favourite one. Any time I suggest cleaning their rooms, the kids magically stop complaining about being bored!)

6.  Weed or water the garden.

7.  Learn how to whistle.

8.  Make paper airplanes and see whose plane flies the farthest.

9.  Learn how to speak Pig Latin or Gibberish.

10.  Paint the fence (or sidewalk) with water and an old paintbrush.

11.  Wash the car.

12.  Practice or learn how to play a musical instrument.

13.  Raid the back of the closet and put together crazy outfits for a crazy fashion show.

14.  Write a twisted tune with new words to an old song. (Maybe they can write a song about how bored they are!)

15.  Jump rope or learn how to jump rope backwards.

16.  Read a book. (Many local libraries offer a summer reading program to help motivate kids to read more.)

17.  Pick a pretty wild flower bouquet and press them between paper towels in a heavy book.

18.  Get artistic with sidewalk chalk.
 

19.  Run through the sprinkler. (And water the garden at the same time, thanks.)

20.  Have a backyard picnic.

21.  Film a short movie. (Even Steven Spielberg had to start somewhere.)

22.  Make your own bubble solution for blowing giant soap bubbles.

23.  Build a fort out of old cardboard boxes, blankets, and/or sheets.

24.  Paint rock creatures and hide them around the neighbourhood for other people to find.

25.  Learn how to use Scratch (a free visual programming language for kids) and design and code your own video game.

26.  Send secret messages using invisible ink.
 

27.  Lie on the grass and cloud gaze. What do you see?

28.  Make homemade ice pops. How many flavours can you come up with?

29.  Build miniature doors and decorations for a fairy garden.

30.  Ride a bike.

31.  Sort through the clothing in the closet and dresser and separate out clothes that are too small or out of season.

32.  Make sock puppets with Dad’s old unmatched socks, buttons, felt, and glue.

33.  Build a sock puppet theatre from a cardboard box.

34.  Make some cloud dough.
 

35.  Go on an alphabet scavenger hunt. (Really clever parents will convince the kids to include lost keys as the letter K on their list.)

36.  Form an air band and put on a rock concert.

37.  Write an autobiography. (This will be worth its weight in gold at their wedding reception.)

38.  Make homemade lemonade.

39.  Set up a lemonade stand.

40.  Draw your family tree.

41.  Hula hoop. Who can hula the longest?

42.  Play catch with water balloons.
 

43.  Perform a random act of kindness for someone in your family or neighbourhood.

44.  Help a neighbour with chores or yard work.

45.  Build a LEGO birdhouse.

46.  Make and decorate newspaper hats.

47.  Fold and put away the clean laundry.

48.  Set up a backyard obstacle course and time your runs. Who can complete it fastest?

49.  Make a bead or macaroni necklace.

50.  Learn how to fold a paper crane. An ancient Japanese legend promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted their most desired wish. That ought to take the rest of the summer!
 

Grab the pin below with all 50 ideas!

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14 Comments

  • I love how simple most of these are (jump rope backwards, play hopscotch) – and stuff I feel like kids maybe don’t do enough of – with all the tech, I mean. And you can’t give them unlimited screen time, lol. I LOVED that there is some emphasis on being a good citizen – clean up, sort laundry, help your neighbors. This is really nice 🙂

  • wow !! so many wonderful and creative ideas to keep the kids busy during summer! I haven’t even done 1/4 of this list. Thank you for sharing. I have it bookmarked to look back on and refer to. first up is creating our own story book 🙂

  • So many fantastic ideas! I love that they are good for a broad range of ages, too. My kids are older and it’s nice to have ideas for stuff *other* than screen time. Thanks for sharing!

  • Great list… and sooooo many things they can do! Plus boredom is good at times, it forces the kiddos to adapt, be creative and entertain themselves.

  • Wow, what a great list of ideas, lots of things that kids will really enjoy and beat the boredom. 🙂