100+ Summer Boredom Buster Ideas for Kids

If you need ideas for keeping the kids busy for the remainder of summer vacation, you’ll want to check out this list of 100+ summer boredom buster ideas for kids!

100+ Summer Boredom Buster Ideas for Kids

It’s officially the middle of the summer in my neck of the woods, and I’ve heard a lot of parents complaining that their kids need to go back to school. I’m not sure if it’s because the kids are fighting, bored, or just ornery, but my kids are driving me nuts too. That means it’s time to get creative and find fun things for them to do to occupy the last few weeks of summer vacation. That’s why we’ve put this list of fun art projects, outdoor activities, cooking, and other learning endeavors you can do with your kids. Hopefully, this list will help you find fun things to do for the rest of the summer with your kids, no matter their age.

Art Projects

Art projects are a lot of fun when the weather is warm and you can kick the kids outside to get messy and creative. If you’d also like indoor art projects, though, we’ve got you covered there too!

Squirt Gun Canvas Art – SimplifyLiveLove

Glowing Camping Craft for Kids – Buggy and Buddy

Puffy Paint Ice Cream Cone Craft for Kids – Crafty Morning

DIY: Sidewalk Chalk “Pops” – Project Nursery

10 Ways to Use Sidewalk Chalk – Castleview Academy

DIY Nature Paint Brushes for Kids – Apple Green Cottage

Add a weekly field trip day!

• Head to a berry patch and pick your own berries. Find a list of Pick Your Own Farms by state here.
• Find new museums to visit.
• Make a goal to hit all of the parks and pools in your local area.
• Head to a country road and stop and pick flowers.

Road Trip Activities for Kids – If you’re taking road trips this summer, you’ll want to keep the kids busy in the car with these activities

Grow something in a garden

Gardening is a great way to get kids active outside and is also a fabulous way to encourage them to eat more fruits and veggies. Although it’s mid July already, it’s not too late to plant something in your garden and still get a harvest. Here are a few gardening activities your kids may enjoy:

Play Garden for Kids – Growing a Jeweled Rose

How to grow a Pumpkin Patch for Halloween Pumpkins – SimplifyLiveLove

Be a Butterfly Hero – Grow a Butterfly Garden in a Pot – SimplifyLiveLove

How to Grow a Three Sisters Garden – Simplify Live Love

Kids’ Container Pizza Garden – Little Family Adventure

10 Educational Gardening Lessons for Kids – Your Modern Family

Fun & games in the yard

I love giant yard games. My brother-in-;aw gave our kids a giant jenga game for Christmas last year and my kid really enjoy it. Here are a few more activities you can easily create as well.

Giant Yard Jenga – Creative Green Living – make your own yard game for under $10 and then play all summer long!

Create a Backyard Sports Camp – Little Family Adventure

Make a life-sized Angry Birds Game – She Knows

Squirt Gun Water Races – Design Dazzle

Water Balloon Baseball – Craft River

Snot Shot Coordination Game – Castleview Academy

Break out the backyard water toys as well

Get out good ole fashioned backyard water toys like the tether ball splash from Bestway,

the  triple slip-n-slide, and the color wave inflatable pool. There’s not much better than being in the water when the weather is hot and these three fun outdoor water activities make outdoor fun possible with minimal effort and without breaking the bank.

Rainy day activities

When the weather is rainy, I highly recommend playing in the rain and later, the mud at least once. Look how much fun my kids are having in the mud. They do wash… and it’s a lot of fun to hose them off with frigid water before allowing them to step foot in the house too. 😉 But if you’d also like a few fun indoor games, here are some you may enjoy:

DIY Ring Toss – From ABC’s to ACT’s

Laundry Basket Ski Ball – Frugal Fun For Boys

Host a scavenger hunt – No Time For Flashcards

Build a Marshmallow & Toothpick Buildings – The Idea Room

Make your own bubble bath –  Homemade for Elle

28 Rainy Day Activities for Kids – The Learning Table

Get cooking with these kid friendly recipes

Cooking with kids is always a good idea. They learn so much from cooking – math skills, practical homemaking skills, how to live a healtheri lifestyle. I highly recommend cooking with your kids a few times this summer and here are a few recipes they may enjoy.

Granny’s Granola Bars – Little Family Adventure

Peanut Butter Apple Nachos – Made to be Momma

Mini Apple Sauce Muffins – Simplify Live Love

Cooking as a Family leads to Innovative Kids – Sandy Toes Creations

Keep learning alive with these STEM activities & books

Did you know kids often lose knowledge during the long summer breaks? Make learning fun for them and help them keep up their basic reading and math skills in the process.

Science Experiments Using Water – SimplifyLiveLove

Science Butterflies – SimplifyLiveLove

Science Experiments Using Eggs! – SimplifyLiveLove

DIY Solar Oven for Kids –  Castleview Academy

STEM Smores Ovens – All About 3rd Grade

Science Experiments with Bubbles – SimplifyLiveLove

Summer Alka-Seltzer Rockets – Playful Learning

Iv’e also received some fun books and learning activities you may enjoy reading or working on with your kids this summer!

Little Passports – Global Adventure, an educational subscription service that sends fun learning adventures to your mailbox every month, or however often you’d like to receive them. My girls were excited to learn about Brazil in the World Adventure series we got in the mail a few weeks ago. They really enjoyed the cute suitcase, passport, and fun learning activities!

Michelangelo for Kids is another book we got in the mail. This book is about Michelangelo’s life and ideas and includes 21 activities. Be forewarned – the book does contain pictures of naked statues of men. My kids guffawed a bit about the photos, but they don’t honestly bother me.

Another fun set of books I received this summer include A Journey through Nature, Space, and Weather. These cute books are great for younger children and my six and eight year old loved the posters the book jackets became. The books are full of educational information and are really cute.

What fun things are you doing to keep your kids occupied this summer?

Disclaimer: Thank you to Bestway Water Toys, QEB Publishing, Little Passports, and Chicago Press Review for providing some of the items included in this post. While I did receive free product, I was not compensated for this post and my opinions are mine alone.

 

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