Summer is a very important period in Children’s life. All the kids wait eagerly for summer break where they are not bound to do any monotonous and repetitive things. They can sleep till a little late and are not supposed to go to school everyday. Now is the time when they can enjoy doing things they like to do. They can be indulged for hours in their hobbies like art, craft, some musical instrument, in fact some times being wild too helps in overall development of kids.
1. Sensory Bins for Toddlers
One super fun activity for toddlers is the sensory bin. Sensory bin is basically a tub filled with fun materials to explore with the senses. It can get a little messy, and there may be a theme that ties together the items included in the bin (but not necessarily). One can make Ocean Sensory Bin with jelly and a Kinetic Sand Beach Sensory Bin. It is a big hit with toddlers.
If you don’t have blue jelly, substitute water with blue food colouring and glitter to create an ocean discovery bottle.
Note- To adapt these activities for babies or toddlers who are still at the stage where little objects pose a choking risk and everything goes in their mouth – simply place the materials in an empty plastic bottle and you have a sensory bottle instead!
2. Ice Play
If you are ok to play with Ice blocks, sprinklers, sand and swimming –it must be summer! Today we are sharing a bunch of fun summer activity ideas to enjoy with the small people in your life – they’re perfect for toddlers and preschoolers but (just quietly!) your school aged kids are sure to want to play too!
Have fun cooling off on a hot day with ice play! There are so many things you can do with ice! Here are some of our favourites (as mentioned above, please exercise caution and closely supervise children under the age of three);
- Ice cube colour mixing: Before the activity, add a few drops of food colouring to water – we used red, blue and yellow, and freeze into ice blocks. Place each of the colour combinations pictured below into some glasses, and watch the magic happen. What a wonderful way to teach young children the primary and secondary colours! Alternatively, place the coloured ice blocks into a sealed zip lock bag (this makes this activity work for younger children too). As the ice melts, talk about what happens to each of the colours.
- Ice excavation: Preschoolers love being ice excavators and archeologists – tapping away at a huge frozen ice block to find treasure! This is easy to prepare – simply, place some objects in a large tub with water (don’t over fill it) and leave it to freeze for a few hours. Add a collection of play tools (or small, blunt real tools) to get them started. The excavation gets easier as the ice melts.
3. Water Play
This post couldn’t be complete without water play! A paddling pool, the sprinkler, a water play table or just a slow running tap with watering cans and buckets can provide hours of fun in the sun. One of my favourite simple play ideas is to ‘paint’ the ground or walls using a paint brush and water. It’s so fun to watch the ‘paint’ disappear as the water evaporates.
- Sponge water bombs: These water bombs are heaps of fun for any age! Cut thin strips of dishwashing sponge and then tie the strips tightly around the middle. Dunk into a bucket of water and you are ready to play!
4. Blow painting
This has to be one of the funniest ways to paint!
5. Flower collage creatures
If you have an abundance of bright flowers and interesting greenery in your garden, creating these flower collage creatures keeps preschoolers (and bigger kids) engaged for ages.
What is your favourite way to have fun and stay cool during the hot summer months?
This blog post is part of the blog challenge ‘Blogaberry Dazzle’
hosted by Cindy D’Silva and Noor Anand Chawla
in collaboration with Zariya Healings.
Great ideas to keep children engaged during the long and hot summer vacations!
A befitting post considering the current vacation time. I had practically exhausted all the tried and tested methods to keep my kids engaged, thankfully your post came up at the apt time. Will try implementing your methods with my kids to keep them engaged.
These are some unique summer activities for kids, I must say. Totally unexpected ideas! I will definitely share them with my cousins to try with my nephews and nieces. They are gonna love it.
These are some innovative ideas for summer activities which the kids will love. I will surely try some of these this week, I am sure my kiddo will enjoy these.
I always love kids and remained one of the favorite among my neighborhood kids and helped them in many of their summer activities and now I have one so my responsibilities increased a lot to keep the kids entertained in the summer months. Your suggestions are just mind blowing and I will add a few in this summer activities for my little friends and my son. Thank you so much dear.
Such fun ways to help kids new learn things as well as enjoy their summer vacations. Ice games sound really interesting. Collages with different materials are my kids’ favourite.
A very useful post considering that kids are on vacation now. Thanks for the timely share.
Forwarding this to all my friends and relatives with toddlers!
Children love playing with water. Making it about learning is great too. Your brush idea reminded me of the books my kids had when they were younger. They used to love all the colors that would turn up just using plain water.
Your post made me nostalgic. Summer always meant a trip to our grandparents’ farm and playing at the tubewell. The activities you shared seem like a lot of fun.
You make me long for childhood again. I don;t think we ever played ice or water games. As we are a family of four adults, these activities remind me of nurturing the child within. I think I will begin with flower collages. It’s fun to spend time in Nature and get to know your environment.