
100 summer boredom busters for kids + free printable
Editor’s note: This post was updated on June 6, 2024.
It’s summer and the kids are out of school for 10(ish) weeks!
Wait. TEN weeks?
Summer is a wonderful time to be free of your sometimes chaotic schedules and to enjoy unstructured time with the kids. But it’s only natural that there might be times when you need an idea or two for how to spend a day. We’ve got a few of those.
Check out the list of activities below and put this handy printable on your fridge to help guide your family in active play throughout the summer:

100 activities to keep your kids busy, active, and happy this summer:
- Break out the hula hoops and try various games
- Go geocaching
- Create and play a fun game of Sidewalk Chalk Twister
- Go for a bike ride with a fun destination
- Have a water bucket relay at the beach
- Spend an afternoon on a DIY slip and slide
- Go for a hike and play some fun hiking games
- Go camping at a camp site or at home
- Try an Indigenous game
- Fly kites
- Plan an Olympics day
- Tackle an obstacle course in your own backyard
- Have a scavenger hunt in your neighbourhood or your backyard
- Find a new playground
- Go plogging
- Go birdwatching
- Make a super-long hopscotch maze with chalk
- Blow bubbles
- Play some active Lego games
- Have an egg and spoon race
- Go berry picking
- Play ultimate Frisbee
- Go swimming
- Collect rocks and make a stone sculpture
- Play games in the sprinkler
- Jump rope
- Visit a splash pad
- Make paper airplanes and see how far they can be flown
- Write and perform a show
- Dig for worms
- Go puddle jumping
- Learn to juggle
- Skip stones at a local pond or lake
- Build a sandcastle in your own sandbox
- Splash up some fun with a water table
- Collect nature pieces and do rubbings
- Make your own stilts
- Pull out the sponges and have a car wash (with bikes, trikes, scooters)
- Paint the fence with water—use sponges, rollers, and brushes
- Make your own balance beam and walk forwards and back, or make and perform a routine
- Use squirt guns to push beach balls
- Try some cheerleading moves and make up your own routines
- Play balloon tennis with fly swatters or pool noodles
- Get together with friends and learn a game from another country
- Pull out the tunes and have a dance party
- Make paper boats and float them in a kiddie pool, pond, creek, or lake
- Put together a parade
- Paint large pieces of paper with fly swatters (use a swatter to flick the paint or rub it across the paper)
- Have a bike parade
- Play charades
- Visit a local farm
- Try some yoga moves
- Play tag with wet sponges
- Catapults!
- Make a piñata from an empty cereal box and fill it with fun pencils, toy cars, hair elastics, stickers, etc.
- Practice some yo-yo tricks
- Create a mini-golf course or go mini-golfing at a local course
- Play croquet
- Use sidewalk chalk to write inspirational messages around the neighbourhood
- Play hide and seek with walkie-talkies
- Play pickleball
- Learn to Zumba with some online videos and create your own Zumba routine
- Go skateboarding—it’s not just for teens!
- Go camping in your own backyard
- Search out the perfect tree (or trees) and climb!
- Play tug of rope
- Play Follow the Leader
- Chalk bodies! Lie on the ground and trace around each other’s bodies. Colour them in or label body parts
- Tag, you’re it! Play different twists on the classic game
- Bowling—find an alley or make your own
- Use a soccer ball to play a bunch of games other than soccer
- Check out the latest Guinness Book of World Records and see if you can aim to beat one (can you balance more than 79 spoons on your body?)
- Build a racetrack for your toy cars and get racing! (Use pool noodles cut in half or pieces of cardboard, lean them against a porch or tree, and voilà! Instant racetrack)
- Make a bird feeder
- Have fun with a play parachute
- How many items can you balance on your head as you walk from one point to another? Beanbags? Books?
- Bucket ball (can you bounce a tennis ball or playground ball and get it into a garbage can or a storage container?)
- Learn to dribble a basketball between your legs or spin a basketball on one finger. Are there other tricks you can do with a basketball?
- Create a ball pit with a kiddie pool and balls—jump in or hide small toys to dig through to find
- Wash your (or your neighbours’) dog
- Make a robot costume out of cardboard boxes
- Break out the hacky sacks
- Find a local museum or science centre. Many have options that blend movement and learning
- Make your own suncatchers and hang them around your yard
- Bring out your inner leprechaun and search for four leaf clovers
- Flashlight tag—inside a dark room or play outside in the dark!
- Download a plant and flower identification app, take it on walks, and keep a list of the vegetation you spot
- Roll down hills
- Shadow games! Can your shadow… wave, jump up and down, fist bump with another shadow?
- Plant flowers
- Play Pooh Sticks (a game played by Winnie the Pooh) at a local stream or river
- Have your own fashion show
- Draw a neighbourhood map—walk through your area and add features like schools, cool trees, friends’ houses
- Be archaeologists—hide a number of small toys in a sandbox and send your kids a-diggin’!
- Jump waves at a local beach
- Have a colour themed day—wear clothes of that colour, eat foods of that colour, or go for a walk and find items of that colour
- Make your own toy parachutes and find different places to throw them from
- Play “mud restaurant” with meals prepared from sticks, mud and other items from a park or backyard
- Have a water gun fight
- Start a collection of pinecones, feathers, shells, etc. How many pinecones can you collect before heading back to school?
Ten weeks presents a number of opportunities for you and your children to make memories to last a lifetime!