20 Fun Summertime Activities for Families!
Spending quality time together as a family is one of the best ways to strengthen family bonds and connections, which helps to set your children up for better odds of future success. Summertime is the ideal time to do all kinds of fun activities with your family, and it’s right around the corner!
What if we told you we’ve spent all the drab and gray winter months secretly planning your perfect summer vacation? This is Cornhole Stops ultimate list of fun summertime activities for families, and we double dog dare you to do the whole list this summer!
Just kidding. Do whatever you want.
For Outdoorsy Families
Free Concert Near You!
We’re totally serious. This is not a joke. Look for free concerts near you and there’s a good chance you’ll be surprised by what you find! If your family’s musical taste is very specific or demanding of perfection, this might not be the most fun you’ll ever have. However, if your family’s musical taste is more eclectic or you like trying new things and seeing people practice their art, watching amateur musicians perform might be the perfect activity for your family!
Go on a Picnic
Pack up some tasty and portable foods like sandwiches, fruit, and other handheld bites for a meal al fresco. Make your picnic a classic picnic with the classic blanket and basket at a park, or go high effort with an elaborate, multicourse meal at the top of a challenging hiking trail. You could also have an improvised, casual picnic by bringing takeout to a local park.
Sidewalk Chalk
Making temporary art is a meditative contemplation of the impermanence of all things… but it’s also just a good excuse to draw wild, colorful patterns and creatures!
Your kids can practice drawing their favorite cartoon characters or create something uniquely their own. Sidewalk chalk is generally available in the seasonal aisle of literally every store during the summer months, or you can make your own all-natural homemade version out of cornstarch, water, and food coloring!
Family Mascots
This summer, have everyone in your family choose a mascot. The mascot should be a toy that’s small enough and easy to take everywhere. Vending machine collectible characters are perfect for this, but you can also use collectible figurines, action figures, or stuffed animals. Smaller is better because you will be taking it everywhere.
The object of this game is to take pictures of your mascot in as many locations as possible. Unicorn at the movies. Superhero at the pool. Shark at the park. Keep taking pics all summer, and we guarantee that you’ll have the best vacation slideshow in the whole neighborhood—maybe even the whole world! Remember to get a “family photo” of all the mascots together!
For Indoorsy Families
Bubble Gum Blowing Contest
Share your favorite bubble gum from your own childhood and try some of the fun new flavors that are available now. The contest is simple: who can blow the biggest bubble without popping it? No limits on the number of pieces of gum chewed at once to blow the biggest bubble (except the limit of how many pieces fit in one’s mouth).
No physical interference with a competitor’s bubble blowing (but making silly faces and telling jokes is okay). Winner can be determined by sight, photo proof, or measurements, depending on whatever feels right for your family.
Movie Night
Any season is the right season to have a movie night—and movie night should be a repeat showing all summer long! Take turns letting each family member choose what movie to watch (add a veto system if you know you’ll need it!), then add some snacks or a fun dinner and you’re all set for a night of family fun at your own home cinema.
Bake Something
Cookies, cakes, cupcakes, scones, there are so many easy and delicious recipes you can teach your kids how to make this summer. Explore your family’s heritage or learn about another culture through food by making traditional treats. Find a popular trend recipe online and give it a try. Choose one type of baked good and test out different recipes until you’ve perfected the art of shortbread, biscuits, or brownies!
Virtual Travel
If your kids want nothing more than to go to Japan or France or any other far-flung location that isn’t in the cards this year, do the next best thing: use Google Street View to wander around anywhere on the planet!
For a more immersive experience, find a walking tour video on YouTube—these videos are typically filmed in a POV style without much commentary from the person behind the camera. It’s just walking around city streets with a bustling commuter soundscape or wandering rural farmlands with ambient noise.
Make a Mural
Tape a long piece of craft paper across the wall in the basement, garage, or anywhere else you have the space and make a family mural together. Get out all the art supplies so the whole family can draw, paint, and color to their heart’s content!
Spend a little bit of time working on the mural all summer together and independently—part of the fun is working on the mural yourself and noticing how much the kids have added. At the end of the summer, announce the unveiling of your masterpiece to friends and relatives!
For Local Families Who Want to Stay Local
Main Street
Check out the small businesses in your local downtown area and show the kids some options that aren’t all giant corporations and mass marketing! Depending on their ages and interests, some shops will be more popular than others. Anything that caters to children, like toy stores, is generally a safe bet—even teens can be entertained by handcrafted local items or products that aren’t common in big box stores and on the most popular e-commerce sites.
Local History
Take in some local history by visiting a historic building or a working farm. Options can vary a lot, ranging from self-guided tours with no frills to authentic historical costuming, reenactments, and educational performances. Either way, you’ll be able to show your kids how much times have changed—if you want to scare them, simply point out at any time that the people who lived where you’re visiting had no cell phones and no internet.
Carnival or County Fair
If you look for one nearby this summer, you’ll find one nearby this summer (just trust us on this). Plan in advance and make sure you’re prepared for the weather. Take extra snacks and water along (trust us on this too), and get ready to explain to your kids why they can’t have a pet piglet or clown to take home!
Thrifting, Flea Markets, and Garage Sales
Shop local small businesses and help your kids discover their own personal aesthetic by taking them to a few flea markets, garage sales, or thrift stores! This gives you an ideal opportunity to show your kids how rewarding it can be to find something truly amazing amidst the junk and the value of reusing something instead of buying new—plus their allowance will go a lot further!
For Families Who Want to Get Out of Town
Visit a National Park
There are so many gorgeous national parks all across the country that there’s bound to be one near you—or one very far away from you. There are no bad choices! From deserts to mountains to actual rainforests in America, national parks have such sights to show you.
As an added benefit, some national parks have only limited internet service depending on where you are in the park, which helps make it easier to fully unplug from the digital life and focus on the natural beauty in the non-virtual world!
Visit a Theme Park
Make this summer the summer of a lifetime by taking the family to a theme park. While the ones that come to mind are the ones you may think you’ll need to take out a second mortgage to afford, there are lots of ways to bring that price down—and there are also tons of smaller theme parks and activity parks that are more affordable and have unique attractions you won’t see at larger parks.
Go to the Beach
If you have a local beach, that is amazing, and we’re happy for you. If you have to travel a ways to get to a beach, summertime is the best time to make the trip! Get the kids involved in the planning: let them help choose which beach you’ll visit, which part of the summer you’ll go during, and the most important part: which snacks are approved official Beach Snacks that must be included on your trip to the beach!
Road Trip!
The great American road trip might be the most cliché summertime activity a family can do together—but don’t knock it until you try it! Whether you drive across the country or plan an overnight at a nearby city, by RV or by family car, every stop meticulously planned or going wherever the road takes you, road trips are infinitely customizable and every family can find one that will be a perfect fit for your interests and needs.
For Families That Want to Spend Time with the Neighbors
Backyard Barbecue
If it’s summertime, we can’t really think of a reason not to barbecue.
Everybody loves barbecue
Great food
Save money on electric bills by not using the oven and the AC at the same time
Show off your favorite recipes
Teach kids new recipes
Spend time outside
Did we mention the food?
From an all-afternoon event with all the fixings to a casual burger on the grill in the backyard, make time this summer to make as much barbecue as possible!
Baseball Party
We’ve heard worse reasons to get a group of friends and family together for snacks and a few cold ones, and baseball isn’t a bad reason at all! Watching sports together is also a great way to spend time with your kids enjoying a shared interest. If you’re more into baseball than football, then summer is your season—and if you’re more into football, fall comes right after summer so you’re basically up next!
Block Party
The OG summertime activity to spend time with your family, your neighbors, and your neighbors’ families… we can’t say enough good things about block parties! If you live somewhere that regularly hosts block parties, you are one of the lucky ones. If you live somewhere that doesn’t regularly host block parties, you can bring them back and become a legend.
The trick to planning a legendary block party is the same as the trick for most other things in life: communication. Block parties take a lot of effort from everyone involved, and the whole block (at least!) is going to be involved.
We’ve written a few guides on block parties in the past and the most important tip we can give anyone planning a block party is to accept help from anyone who offers. If you do it right, everyone will give you the glory for a magnificent block party that you merely coordinated and directed. This is how it should be done!
Have the Best Summer of Your Life
Make your backyard barbecue or your block party even more spectacular by showing off your own custom cornhole board from Cornhole Stop! All you have to do is submit a request, and one of our digital artists will bring your design to life. We also have hundreds of themed sets if you aren’t interested in designing your own.
Sounds like the best summer ever, right? But we know what you’re thinking: how will you possibly do the whole list over one memorable family summer vacation? Easy! Start by making a plan, then follow the plan—and then try again next summer because no one is going to do the whole list in one summer but the real fun is in trying!
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