With summers arriving, the schools are soon to close in most parts of the world and that sets the start of summer vacations.. the most awaited time for kids and dreadful time for parents!!

The biggest challenge is to keep the kids busy most of the time since outdoors becomes limited owing to hot weather conditions. Ofcourse cartoons, video games and toys will be there, but we don’t want kids to become couch potato or addicted to screen, right?

The best way is to involve them in chores and regular daily activities along with some additional fun activities and outings. Here are few tips:

1.Learn New Chore:

We all wish our kids to be independent and self-reliable. And so more important for them is to be able to do basic chores and daily stuff all by themselves – without help.

Kids hardly get time during school days, so best is to utilize the vacations to tick off some more new age-appropriate chores like making their own bed, mopping, washing dishes, loading/unloading dishwasher/washing machine, wash their toys/shoes, folding laundry, setting up cupboard etc.

2. Learn New Skill:

There are so many skills to learn, some of which are absolutely essential and life-saving ones like swimming, karate or kung-fu, cycling, etc. Along with few ones motivated by interests and hobby like singing, playing musical instruments, dance-forms, skating, sketching, etc. 

How many skills can we add to our cap in each vacation? THINK!!

3. Learn New Sport:

Sports is the best form of physical exercise. Be it outdoor game or indoor sport, it has it’s own value. Depending on the interest, encourage child to try new sport.. do join them, if possible.

Also read Summer Crafts & Activities for Kids


4. Activity Subscription Boxes:

I am loving the concept of Subscription Boxes, (I knew only of Book Subscriptions). Especially the ones which include number of age-appropriate interesting learning activities focusing on overall motor and gross skills, cognitive & social developments.

Firstcry Intellikit is one such total value for money Theme-based Activity Subscription Box for kids. Best quality that I appreciate is that most of the items are re-usable and activity can be performed repeatedly. I am all for re-use and re-cycle and just don’t prefer to waste money on one-time use toys or activities.

 

5. Read New Books:

Books are always one’s best friends. Trying to read or reading at least one new book in vacations would make them wiser, ofcourse no forcing works when it comes to book reading. So parents need to inculcate some techniques and get involved in reading sessions to develop interests.

Some books based activities like story-telling, pretend play or making crafts will be more fun and help in better understanding.

Don’t forget to applaud!!

6. Explore Nature:

Though outdoors might be restricted because of high temperatures, mornings and evenings can still be utilized and some sunshine is good for bones. Visiting zoo, beach, theme park, water park, museums will be exciting for kids. So an idea to make each outdoor trip useful and worthy would be to prepare some activity sheets based on what they saw, learned or explored.

An excellent way is to capture the nature walk is by clicking pictures and sticking them on paper and gluing some leaves, flowers or shells that they collect in a park or beach. Some useful FREE PRINTABLE Nature Activity Sheets can be downloaded here.

7. Make New Friends:

Socializing is a skill that not everyone possess. So take this vacation as an opportunity to introduce the kids to new neighbors, new people at park, hobby class. Encourage them to initiate conversations with people.

Not all strangers are bad. The kids need to learn to identify & approach someone who could help them in any situation, and that can be learned when they understand body language and gestures. Though go slow and no pressurizing with introvert kids.

8. Travel:

While travelling is the best way of learning by experiencing, it’s also a great way to bond with family and spend quality time together. Selecting a kid-friendly place and keeping to-do list practical according to kids is recommended.

You might like to read Travelling with Toddler to Nepal

Make a summer bucket list with kids as the summer vacations start, and get all motivated and get them a vision and a plan to look forward to. Encourage and motivate at each step, give them ideas and let them write their wishful list, then help them out or suggest more useful and practical options.

DOWNLOAD SUMMER BUCKET LIST FOR FREE

Keep the TRAVEL itinerary easy and less-hectic, carry enough snacks and travel-time activities for kids.

Do include some kid-friendly activities as a first-time experience like cable-car ride, water sport, boating, cruising, etc.

9. Try New Food/Cuisine:

Children are most likely to pick their favorite dish given a chance and tend to avoid even tasting new food if it doesn’t appeal to them. Vacations can be a great opportunity t introduce new dishes to kids. Take them to different cuisine restaurants or friends places, if not at home.

10. Learn to Cook A New Dish:

Cooking is a life-saving skill every child should learn. At least few basic quick easy dish or fire-less cooking so that they don’t depend on someone and can atleast feed themselves.

Summer vacations are excellent time to involve them in kitchen and motivate to serve hand-cooked food to family members. Little prize of ice-cream would be enough encouragement.

11. Make hand-made gifts/cards for friends/teachers/siblings:

Make them write-down birthdays or anniversaries or any other special days like Mother’s Day & Father’s Day and help them in creating hand-made gifts or cards well in advance, so that they have a surprise ready, in case they don’t get time during school days.

12. Level-up Games/Puzzles:

Kids memorize a puzzle or a game in set pattern quickly and surprise us. So level up the brain-game and increase the difficulty level of puzzles or board games. Let them rack their brains. And they will be able to crack it faster in holidays, as have no time-limits or pending home works or projects.

13. Science Experiments:

To make summer vacations much more interesting, try on some easy science experiments to do at home like Magic Milk Coloring Experiment, Skillet Rainbow Experiment, Lava lamps etc.

With so many new learnings scheduled for each day, the kids will have a motive to wake-up every holiday morning rather than wondering and wandering aimlessly.

Trust me, they will love striking off the bucket list and will be motivated to do more each day.

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HAPPY SUMMERS!!

LOVE x

24 thoughts on “How to make Summer Vacations useful: FREE PRINTABLE Bucket List

  1. Hey i really like these ideas and points shared on how to make summer holidays fun and at the same time keep busy. Thanks for the free printables😊
    Kim Paradise – MumFLIX

  2. This is so great and with this list, I am sure that kids will have great summer vacation with fun and learning!!

  3. Making summer vacations interesting and less troublesome for mommies. Great post and I am sure all moms and kids will be very happy doing such fun stuff during holidays.

  4. I loved the efforts you are putting for making the kid’s vacation lively. Free printable is just amazing. Very useful post!

  5. Summer vacation is a big time at our home.Games ,art attack and fun activities are happening daily

  6. Keeping kids busy yet learn new things is really important especially in their early age. These are some great ideas to follow

  7. This is an awesome list. I am going to include many this from this list for my kids..

  8. We do few of these things but can surely add from your list. I liked your ideas and won’t wait till next vacations to use them!

  9. These activities are great for kids to learn as well as enjoy over the vacations as well as on other holidays.

  10. Great pointers indeed for summer vacations and keeping the kiddos busy that too constructively. My son learnt few sports this summer holiday…

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