Things to do at the beginning of the summer

Buy passes for the local pool or water park

Call the local Girl Scout or Boy Scout Council and find a group near you

Check and see if there are free summer movies at the park in your town (Riverside has them)

Check the Summer Sky Calendar and watch the stars this summer!

Check your local colleges for kids programs

Check your local library for summer reading programs

Check your local Parks and Recreation Department for summer classes

Get a library reading list appropriate for your age and reading level. Get a library card if you don’t have one. Set a reading goal for the summer. Plan to read ½ hour every day.

Go to Barnes and Noble and get the form for their summer reading program. Read 10 books and then you get to pick one for free!

Look for local summer concert programs

Look into local theater groups and attend a live play in your area

Visit AMC Theaters online and get a form for their summer reading program  for every three books read you get a “movie pack”

 Summer activities to keep you busy

Animate a flip book

Ask if you can sort your parent’s change or coins in a coin jar and count it all.

Ask your friends what their favorite summer activities are--make a graph of the most popular activities.

Ask your parents what their favorite games were when they were young. If they still sell that favorite game, buy it and play it with the family.

At the grocery store, talk about prices and weights of food.

Bake a cake from scratch. Make frosting from scratch. Decorate the cake.

Be a good citizen. Look for little ways you can improve your community, pick up trash at the park, sweep your neighbor’s sidewalk when you are doing yours,  take old magazines to a local nursing home, donate used books to a doctor’s office,  take a neighbor’s newspaper to the front door or roll the garbage cans in for them on trash day,  smile at people when you see them, hold the door open for others, let someone go in front of you at the store if they only have 1 or 2 items, express your appreciation for help at the library, stores, gas station and anywhere you go by saying a hearty “Thank You” and have the kids help you think of other ways to make your community better.

Be a pet detective and observe an animal.

Be a safety planner! Look for safety signs and create some of your own.

Be a standards detective! Find out from your school what it takes to get on the honor roll.

Build a bird feeder

Build a bird house that your local birds will be able to use.

Build your vocabulary. Learn prefixes and their meanings; these give you further clues to the meanings of words. A prefix is a word part that attaches at the front of a word and affects its meaning. Prefixes are usually Greek. 

Buy strawberries at a roadside stand and make strawberry shortcake

Celebrate going to school! Find out how other cultures celebrate learning and how they learn. Many other cultures have longer school hours than the US does, can you find out how many hours a day children in other places are in school?

Check out 2 books this month from the library and read them

Choose and buy a new board game for the family. Pick a night for Family Game Night and play the new game as well as the games you already have.

Clean out the garage

Compare history as presented on TV and in reference books with your parent.

Cook dinner with your parent and learn the do's and don'ts of preparing food.

Cookie baking day. Make a batch of cookies, decorate them and take some to a friend’s house as a surprise

Create a crossword puzzle using your favorite computer terms.

Create a family reading night.

Create a family web page with your parents.

Create a history time line -- Record history at home. Stretch a roll of shelf paper along the floor. Use a ruler to make a line about three feet long. (Use a separate sheet for each child.) Ask your parents for help filling in the important dates in their lives, starting with their birth. Those familiar with U.S. history can fill in major dates since the founding of our country. Display these finished time lines in a special place for all to see.

Create a list of five jobs that interest you. Choose one, list reasons why it interests you and interview someone in that career.

Create a map of goals for you to achieve at school in third grade

Create a model of an environment in which you'd like to live. Use only found objects and natural materials.

Create a picture story -- Develop imagination and creativity. Have your children select four or five pictures from magazines and newspapers, and put them together to tell a story. Ask your children to number the pictures -- 1,2,3, etc. First, ask them to tell the story with the pictures in numerical order. For variety, have your children rearrange the pictures and tell a new story using this different arrangement.

Create a scrapbook for each child or simply make a summer scrapbook for this summer’s mementos. Be sure to have each child write and draw their favorite memories from the summer in their own handwriting.

Cut pieces of paper into shapes and paste them in a quilt pattern.

Decorate a shoe box to store summer treasures.

Define a problem you want to solve. Pick one problem and think of ways that you might be able to make a difference.

Design a self-portrait that shows how you feel.

Develop street smarts - Put reading skills to practical use. Gather bus and Metrolink route maps and schedules to a special place in your area -- the zoo, a museum, a football stadium. Help your parents plan a trip for friends or family. Figure out the travel time required, the cost, and the best time to make the trip.

Discover when things were invented. Make a timeline.

Discuss the differences between universities, community colleges, and technical schools and the degrees offered at each one.

Discuss ways to save energy around the house (you’ll save money, too!)

Do face painting.

Draw or paint a picture of your best friend.

Eat dessert for dinner

Enroll your dog in obedience school.

Explore how two or more ideas can be put together. Create an ongoing practice after dinner or in the car where you use this kind of thinking (it is called biosciation).

Explore music; listen to country, classical, jazz or some other type of music that your family doesn’t usually listen to.

Explore origin of holidays, such as Independence Day. Research can be done at the library or on the Internet.

Explore your neighborhood find a park or library branch that you’ve never been to and check it out today.

Feed the ducks and geese at a local pond

Find 3 jobs in the classifieds that interest you. Find out more about them and tell your family about them at dinner.

Find a Pen Pal

Find a project that you can work on as a team. It can be an art project, a chore, gardening, making dinner once a week or writing report on something you’ve learned. Teamwork is a lot of fun!

Find an alcohol or cigarette advertisement in a magazine or newspaper. Talk about the message. How would you redesign the ad to show what can happen if you use the product?

Find out what cultures are represented in your community. Look around you; how many different ethnic groups can you identify?  Learn about these cultures.

Find patterns in things around you, such as brick or siding on a building, spider webs, or quilts. Create your own pattern.

Find your town on a map of the state.

Fondue your dinner and dessert

Get on the internet and play a game where you follow links not based on what information is presented, but on the first letter of the link. See what random and amusing sites you find.

Get some balloons, some newspapers, some flour and water and make a paper mache Piñata

Get the family together and wash the car

Get the kids to help think of some things that they can make for Christmas gifts and make them now.

Get wet!! Even if you don’t have a pool, you can use water balloons, squirt guns, wading pools and hoses to have a lot of fun and get soaked on a hot summer day.

Get a budget for the day and plan healthy meals for your family that don’t go over the budget

Go bird watching. Identify 5 local birds.

Go miniature golfing

Go on a field trip.

Go sightseeing in your local historic buildings or attractions

Go through old art work choose the best ones to save. Send some of the other artwork to grandparents and other family members.

Go through your toys and box up the ones you don’t use anymore. Then let them have a Kids Used Toy Sale Saturday to sell the toys. After the weekend, box up what is left and donate it to Goodwill or a women’s shelter. The kids can take the money and buy a new toy or book.

Go to a local aquarium or zoo

Go to a recycling center and learn what you can recycle. Then recycle everything you can the rest of the summer.

Go to a U-Pick produce farm and pick fruit (Oak Glen has several)

Go to the airport and watch planes take off and land. If possible eat lunch at a nearby restaurant and watch from there.

Go to the beach, if you don’t have a local beach or lake, go to the local community swimming pool for a nice cool swim!

Go to the park or playground.

Go to your local animal shelter and donate newspapers, towels or other needed items.

Go wild with sidewalk chalk

Grow a small vegetable garden. Let your kids pick out what you will grow.

Harry Potter fans can research the mythical Phoenix while waiting for book #5 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Have a backwards day; begin by having dinner for breakfast.

Have a bedroom cleaning day and get rid of old clothes and toys (then use the kid’s toy sale as a reward)

Have a BIG 4^th of July celebration

Have a grandparent share family stories with the you in person, on the phone or via e-mail

Have a nutritious day! Put healthful foods into your body.

Have a slumber party

Have a tea party or an event where each guest plays the part of a character from a book, movie, the media, or other realm.

Have someone hide a treasure and draw a map to find it. Then you can have a treasure hunt.

Have your parent help you prepare and serve a proper tea and little crust less sandwiches one afternoon. Use the tea to practice your special occasion manners. 

Have your parents start teaching you about car maintenance and minor repairs. Kids should learn how to change a tire, check and add oil, check and add water and check air pressure in tires and add air if needed. You also need to know how to pump gas and figure out mileage for the car.

Have your parents teach you about lawn maintenance. You need to know how to mow and edge the lawn, rake, prune, weed, transplant plants, sweep or blow walks, water the lawn and flower beds and how to plant seeds.

Help out by making phone calls for your mom. You can call a store to check hours or to see if an item is in stock. When you are ready you can make appointments for others and enter the dates on your family calendar.

Help your mom with dinner. You can read the recipe to her or double the recipe for her.

Investigate our town history from old newspapers.

Learn a joke

Learn a new card game

Learn a new skill like setting the table or doing laundry.

Learn a tongue twister

Learn about fire safety. Discuss a fire escape route and have a mock fire drill.

Learn about root words and their meanings.

Learn about your family pet or pets. Check out a book from the library or look information up on the Internet. Share what you learned at dinner.

Learn about your own local ecosystem. An ecosystem is a group of animals and plants living in the same area or environment. Look around you and list all the animals, insects, trees, and plants in your neighborhood.

Learn more about your city

Learn more about your community

Learn more about your state

Learn to sew on a button and sew a seam. Make a simple project that requires sewing.

List ten ways we use math around the house.

Listen to books on tape as a family activity while you are in the car.

Listen to music and dance

Listen to music together as a family. Play some of your old favorites for the kids. Listen to Folk Music, Elvis Music, Beatles Music or some other kind of music that you normally do not.

Look for bugs. How many different kinds of bugs can you find? Size? Color?

Look for nice big smooth rocks and paint them for paperweights

Look up events on the day you were born.

Make a chart that allows you to mark off a box for every dollar you save. At the top of the chart, paste an advertisement or picture of the thing you want. There should be one box for each dollar it will take to buy your "prize."

Make a collage from things found around the house -- ribbons, string, buttons, and pebbles.

Make a day-by-day calendar -- Turn a large calendar -- commercial or home made -- into a personalized family communication center. Have your children fill in the blanks with messages, weather reports, birthdays, special activities, or notes to the family.

Make a first aid kit for your house and car

Make a grocery list that fits within a budget from your parents. Use coupons if you want.

Make a kite and fly it

Make a loaf of bread by hand. Find out why yeast makes bread rise.

Make a map of your neighborhood. Include your favorite places as well as community services, like the Police Department, Fire Department and Post Office.

Make a mud puddle and get dirty!!

Make a poster of summer safety tips

Make a rectangular cake, top with white icing, strawberries and blueberries to make it look like the US flag

Make a sculpture, fort, or costume by using everyday items in unusual ways. Turn a couch on its side or bring garden furniture inside.

Make a time capsule and save it for a year or two. 

Make a travel “kit” to take in the car with them this summer

Make a wish list of places you would like to visit. Look them up on a map. Try and visit a few of them over the summer. Develop a budget and figure out how many miles away they are.

Make and play with bubbles

Make dinner out of appetizers and finger foods only

Make finger puppets with your child. Cut the ends off the fingers of old gloves. Draw faces on the fingers with felt tip markers, and glue on yarn for hair.

Make greeting cards

Make homemade ice cream

Make homemade paper (it is fun for cards and gift tags)

Make ice cream sandwiches using cookies and ice cream

Make ID cards. Grab the camera and your computer and use them to design ID cards. While you are at it make an Emergency Record for the house. You can add fingerprints easily if you find a store that sells Notary Public supplies or ask at your local Police Station if they’ll finger print the kids for you. Be sure to get current height and weight!!

Make lemonade from real lemons.

Make peanut brittle

Make personalized bookmarks

Make popsicles with Kool Aid or fruit juice

Make soft pretzels

Make strawberry freezer jam

Make sure that you know your full address and phone number. If you do, then work on learning your parent’s cell phone number, work number or the phone number of a friend or neighbor you can call for an emergency.

Make up a board game of facts and "why" questions related to your favorite subject in school.

Make up a card game. You can start by changing a game you know, and then change it again.

Make waffles and serve fresh summer fruit on them as a topping

Make your own  “Lunchables ®”  with cookie cutters for a day at the park

Make your own "magnetic poetry" using favorite words. You can buy a self-adhesive magnetic sheet from many sign-making shops or craft shops

Measure objects in your room. Make a floor plan and draw another picture of how you’d like to re-decorate.