You made it! Summer is FINALLY upon us.
When we started this season of COVID-19, I encouraged you to be intentional with the extra time and your daily schedules with your children. We are now into the summer months and I want to continue to encourage you to enjoy the days with your children. Make some plans rather than just wonder where all the days went.
Maybe you and your family can sit down and brainstorm together things that would be fun or meaningful to do this summer, before school starts back up. It only makes sense since the days are long, and the weather is usually great for being outside! Create a Summer Bucket List for your family and refer to it often. You might use a dry erase board for your list and circle them as you complete them, or place the activities on strips of paper and pull one from a jar each day. I’ve listed some ideas to help get you thinking. Have fun together!
So, what would be on your list?
Here are 50 Summer Bucket List ideas for families. (Please consider the local COVID-19 quarantine regulations and your level of comfort. Feel free to adjust as needed.):
- Go for a family bike ride down a local trail
- Camp out in the living room to play board games on a rainy day
- Set up a blanket or tent in your backyard on a clear night and stare at the stars together
- Visit someplace local that’s free and beautiful, like a state park or nature preserve
- Run through a sprinkler
- Stay in your pajamas all day and eat breakfast food for dinner
- Help your children memorize The Lord’s Prayer
- Meet up with friends at a splash pad
- Play freeze tag
- Cut the lawn of a local friend, but don’t get found out
- Host a neighborhood campfire in your driveway and make s’mores
- Choose a devotional book and start each day of the summer reading one together
- Borrow a video projector and host an outdoor movie night on the side of your house
- Read every book your local library has from a favorite author, or at least go to the library each week
- Catch fireflies in a jar
- Hike into the woods for a couple of hours
- Turn off all your electronics for one whole day as a family
- Buy a cup of lemonade at a kid’s stand
- Light sparklers and watch fireworks
- Fly a kite
- Collect seashells
- Dress up and film your own movie
- Burn a hole in a leaf using a magnifying glass and the sun
- Listen to old songs and new ones to decide which one is “the song of this summer”
- Sketch out a family portrait on your driveway using sidewalk chalk
- Brew sun tea
- Consume a whole watermelon together in one sitting
- Supply the neighborhood kids with some homemade popsicles
- Create your own snow cones
- Chase down an ice cream truck and buy something sweet
- Try fishing, even if you don’t know how to fish
- Bake brownies or cookies and share some with a neighbor
- Hang a bird feeder
- Host a family tournament with your kids’ favorite video game
- Set up a scavenger hunt for your kids and their friends, including offering some cool prizes
- Pick berries at a farm
- Hit a deli on the way to the beach to order monster sandwiches for lunch
- Have a water balloon fight
- Make homemade ice cream
- Go to a drive-in theater
- Ride horses together
- Sample every pizza place in your town
- Sail on a boat
- Ride on a jet ski, or rent a kayak from the park
- Find a mini-golf course that everyone can do well on and play a round
- Shop at a farmer’s market together to buy food to make an entire meal out of
- Drive out to visit a new zoo
- Attend a sporting event
- Memorize the books of the Bible in order
- Pull out old pictures or home movies and share stories of the past
Any of these can be done completely as a family or as a one-on-one time with each of your kids. The goal is to be present all summer long.
There’s also a matter of making sure you don’t get so recreational that you lose sight of good consistencies. It’s easy during summer to turn God into recreation and recreation into God. So, in the midst of it all, remember that these are not activities meant to be an end unto themselves or alternatives to church but an on-ramp into Jesus-centered connections. Imagine what that could look like!
Your turn! What’s on your list?
In striving for a touch-free church experience, please plan to print these activities ahead of time, if you plan for your child to complete them during Sunday services. Remember pens and crayons too, please.
Resources
Follow this link for a complete step-by-step time of Bible study with your children:
Enjoy this Children’s Bulletin for this Sunday:
Gideon Word Line Up:
Children’s Worship Song: My God is Powerful
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