Indoor Activities for Kids This Summer

When school is out, kids often find themselves at home. There is the occasional camp, sport or extracurricular activity to keep them entertained, but more often than not, they are spending the summer months at home. Outdoor activity is a great alternative to sitting in front of the TV, but sometimes the weather has other plans. To keep the kids from bouncing off the walls, or spending their days glued to screens, we have seven great ways to keep them occupied and maybe even learn something new!

The Great Outdoors… Indoors

Going camping can be a summer family tradition, but when a trip to the great outdoors is not realistic, bring the outdoors indoors! For special occasions, setting up the family tent in the house can make ordinary playtime a whole new experience. Some kids might even want to sleep in the tent as part of the adventure! If your tent is a little too outdoorsy (read: covered in pine needles and dirt) to come inside, building a classic pillow fort with blankets, chairs, comforters and furniture can be just as much fun. Let your child be the architect of their own fort and building the space can be just as rewarding as playing inside it!

Shut out all the lights and pass out the flashlights and invite kids to read their favorite book in a whole new light or have a shadow puppet competition against one wall. For a full camping experience, kids and parents can even make smores – we recommend using kitchen appliances versus a campfire. Less authentic, yes, but also less likely to mean a visit from the local firemen.

Homemade with Happiness

Making something at home can be a fun way to engage your children in an activity with a rewarding ending without having to buy more toys or games. One tasty summer activity is making homemade popsicles. Even the pickiest of eaters can concoct a flavor combination they will love. Puree their favorite fruit with some yogurt. If you have them, pour the mix into popsicle molds or (if you do not have molds) cups with popsicle sticks will work just fine. The hardest part about this project is waiting for the popsicles to harden.

Another fun thing to make at home is play dough. Kids love it, as do adults. There are plenty of recipes (both cooked and uncooked) on the internet, but one such recipe uses things you probably have lying around the house: flour, salt, cream of tartar, oil, boiling water, and food coloring (if you want different colors of dough). You can access the recipe here.

Don’t let the hours of summer slip away with the kids merely staring into the TV. Spend that time with them, learn something new, and create amazing things together – even if those things are just fond memories and laughter.

If You Build It, They Will Catapult

If your child is more of a builder than a baker, try making a marshmallow catapult! It is a fun diversion of the typical Legos and Lincoln Logs and, honestly, name something that involves marshmallows that isn’t immediately a hit. We’ll wait.

Not only is this a fun and tasty way to spend an afternoon, but it also is a lesson in physics. To create your marshmallow catapult, you will need four things: popsicle sticks, rubber bands, a spoon (plastic, preferably) and marshmallows. First, stack 4-6 popsicle sticks and rubber band them together to create a fulcrum. Take two more sticks and rubber band them at one end. Slip the fulcrum in between those two sticks and rubber band the two sets together where they meet in an X shape. Rubber band a spoon onto the arm of the catapult. If you find it is not very stable, add another rubber band at the base of the spoon. Place a marshmallow in the spoon, pull down and let it go! Kids will love coming up with new combinations of items to see who can make a catapult with the farthest reach. Another fun activity is seeing who can catapult a marshmallow into another person’s mouth. We volunteer to catch the marshmallows!

The Next Great American Novel

Maybe your little one has grown bored of making up stories for their toys on the living room floor. Give them a new platform to express all that creativity! Some sheets of paper, a stapler and crayons are all that separate your child from taking their first step toward being a New York Times Bestseller. Invite each kid to write their own story (complete with illustrations) and then hold a reading where each child reads his/her story to the family. Maybe your kids are a little more Shakespeare than Steinbeck. Have them write their own play and then put on a show! Whatever the medium, remember to have the camcorder handy.

Arrr, Matey

For an interactive activity for both parents and kids, or just kids for those older tots, a treasure hunt is a great way to kill an afternoon. Take fun little treats to hide (lollipops and other sealed candies work well, but even healthy snacks like bananas and sandwich bags of grapes can be enticing). Have the child stay in a room while the treasure is hidden. Then, either have the children find the treasure on their own, or make a map – pirate style. White boards are fun ways to display a map that can be easily modified from round to round. Sheets of paper will also work.

Going on Strike

While many bowling alleys offer summer leagues to kids, sometimes it is easier to just set up a lane at home. Given the fickle nature of our little ones, it is far easier to find another use for 2-liters and a kickball than bowling shows, a bowling ball, and a prepaid league membership. Whatever the age of your children, they will find this at-home activity entertaining at least for an afternoon, and the rules are scalable depending on age, interest, and proficiency. All you need are 10 empty water bottles or 2-liters, and a ball. Younger kids may need a larger ball, like a basketball or kickball, to knock down the “pins” but a tennis ball or lacrosse ball can be substituted for older kids to make it more challenging. Extending the distance from the bowler and the pins can also increase or decrease the difficulty.

Though you can modify the gameplay as you see fit, a traditional bowling game will have 10 rounds per player, with each player getting two tries per round to knock down all the pins. Each pin knocked down is one point. If your child scores a strike, the new two throws count as double points. If they manage a spare, their next round counts as double. Highest score at the end of 10 complete rounds wins! If the bottles are too easy to knock down, fill them with a little water to help anchor them.

Afterschool Programming

For kids who are a little older, learning to code websites can be a fun and incredibly useful summer activity that sets them up for success in the future. Though they may not make the next viral social media platform in their first summer of coding, learning the basics will help them build on their logic and problem-solving abilities, and even provide a creative outlet. If you have always thought your child’s creativity is limited to art, music or writing, don’t rule out coding! Maybe they struggle drawing that perfect giraffe, but coding that same giraffe comes naturally. Though the option to sign your child up for a coding class is certainly a viable option, many sites on the internet will teach children how to code for the unheard-of price of FREE. Kids are already going to want to be attached to their computers this summer. Learning to code lets them interact with the web, but in a more meaningful way than watching hours of crazy cat videos.

At GCD, we design and build homes that bring families together and serve as a place to store a lifetime of memories. These memories are most precious when spending time with our little ones. Don’t let the hours of summer slip away with the kids merely staring into the TV. Spend that time with them, learn something new, and create amazing things together – even if those things are just fond memories and laughter. Our homes are the perfect place to spend summer days with the family, so if you are interested in building your own GCD home, we are happy to help you get started in the process. Just reach out to us using the contact us link in the header above, and begin your journey to home ownership!