“I’m bored in the house i’m in the house bored”… Oh sorry, nothing to see here! For my house, I fortunately haven’t had to hear those dreaded two little words. Last summer was my first full summer with kids who weren’t doing some kind of summer camp and were literally on summer break from school. I ended up logging all of our daily activities on my Facebook page and it really was wild how busy I was able to keep them! It’s pretty much the same song and dance this summer break and I’ve got some great boredom busters for you to try!
This current summer isn’t much different than last year, other than one of my kids is attending a four week summer intervention program. This is a three hour long, three days a week, for four weeks program. She loves going to school so this is something that she looks forward too!
Pool – We have an above ground pool so a lot of time we don’t have to leave the house, my kids are fish and can literally swim around for most of the day. We have a ton of floats, diving toys, the watermelon ball and goggles, all you need to add is a friend or two sometimes and that’s a wrap!
Library Events – We have an amazing library in our town that offers a summer reading program for the kids, coordinated story times and crafts, demonstrations, classes and special events to attend. Our events are well known and loved so you often times have to be quick to sign up or you’ll be placed on a waiting list! Check your local library for summer hours and events, I was surprised at how often we go there during summer break. This summer they are also doing a scavenger hunt including other local businesses in town.
$2 Kid Movies at Regal Theaters – My kids love these, even if it’s a movie they’ve seen before, there’s nothing like seeing it on the big screen! Our theater has the nice reclining seats, so we bring blankets to get cozy, even my two year old son sits through a whole movie! On Tuesday showings, if your a rewards member the popcorn is half off so all five of us can see a movie and eat the oh so buttery popcorn for under $15! We sign up for all the movies we want from the end of June through August and if something comes up and we can make it, you have the option to release your seats and get a refund, I love the no pressure aspect of it.
Kids’ Bowl FREE! – This is a good activity on a rainy day! We have a few bowling alley’s around us that participate in the Kid’s Bowl FREE program where kids can bowl two FREE games of bowling each day during the Spring and Summer months. Sometimes we’ll go just us or we will make plans with friends to meet up and let the kids all bowl together and grab some lunch while we’re there! It is super easy to sign up too; you just find a participating center in your community by inputting your zip code, register your kids and go bowling! Two games is just enough time until they are ready to head back home!
Zoo/Aquarium Membership – We have a membership to our local zoo and when it’s not too hot, we’ll make a day of it getting our steps in and seeing all of the animals we can get to, along with some of the activities that they have, such as a train-ride, feeding the giraffes, and more. The more the merrier, with our guest passes we can bring some friends to join in on the fun too!
VBS – Vacation Bible School! VBS happens all throughout the end of June, July and beginning of August. We attended and I was a group leader for our home church VBS program. We also VBS – hop around to experience our friends church programs! They are usually 5 days long for 2-3 hours – either in the morning or at night. There’s a theme and so many activities, no two do it the same, and my kids thoroughly enjoy them, they just finished one where they got to see a live helicopter land, do a demonstration and take off!
County Programs – The county where I live has an events calendar every summer, they include family friendly shows located at different locations, the latest one we attended was a pirate magic show and movies in the park, so 1-2 times per week a movie will be projected onto an inflatable screen and the public can come out with their entire family and watch! We like to pack up our lawn chairs, blankets, bug spray, lantern, lots of snacks and popcorn and head on our way to catch an outdoor movie with friends or just us! All of our county programs are FREE to the public! They even offer summer concerts, pickle ball, guided trail walks and other special events.
Let us know in the comments what type of boredom busters you do with the littles to keep them busy!
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