50 Summertime Activities for Kids

“It’s summertime and the living is easy.” Sam Cooke sang it and we lived it—long lazy summer days filled with simple pleasures and homemade fun. Turn off the television, put away the video games and share these old-fashioned traditions with your children. With more than 50 activities, games, pastimes and ideas, there’s bound to be something on our list that will inspire a trip down memory lane. Take your kids along and help them build some wonderful memories of their own.

Just to name a few!

Run through a sprinkler.
Have a bubble gum blowing contest, then take turns reading the Bazooka comics aloud.
Play some Beach Boys music.
Organize the neighborhood into teams for a game of stickball. Okay, you can use a regular ball and bat, but pick-up games were a daily event in summers gone by. Stickball, kickball or volleyball—the point is simply to have a ball.
At the end of your rope with kids complaining they’re bored? Knot a piece of string and play cat’s cradle. Find Step-by-step directions and photos on If You Love to Read’s website.
Still popular with today’s kids, hula hoops are good fun and great exercise. See who can hula hoop the longest. Skip through a hula hoop like you’re jumping rope. Set up an obstacle course. Create stations with different tasks such as hula for 10 spins, spin two hoops on your arms, jump through a hoop held by another person.
Make a cootie catcher.
Spend an evening at the drive-in. The first drive-in movie theater opened in 1933. Over the following decades, drive-ins expanded to include play areas and food service. In 1954, there were approximately 3,775 drive-ins across the nation. By the 1990s, there were fewer than 600 remaining open for business. In recent years, drive-ins have regained popularity as a family entertainment venue.
South Bay Drive-In: 619-423-2727; www.southbaydrivein.com
Santee Drive-in Theater: 619-448-7447
Game time! Remember Duck Duck Goose and Red Rover? Send summer fun right over!
Toss a Frisbee around.