Long summers are a gift, and two months plus of unstructured time sounds idyllic until.. It’s 10 am on a Tuesday, and one child is already bored, the other children are fighting, and the TV has been on since breakfast. Kids are pretty easy to please when you stop trying to impress them, and most of the best things to do are either free or close to it. So in the spirit of summer 2026, here are 26 summer ideas to get the season moving without putting a dent in your wallet.
1. Make a summer bucket list together.
Sit down as a family at the start of the holidays and let the kids write down whatever they feel like doing in the summer. Big things, small things, weird things. The point is not to commit to the entire bucket list but rather to get everyone excited and give the summer break a loose sense of direction.
2. Build a blanket fort city.
Each kid gets their own corner of the living room, a designated pile of blankets, and whatever cushions they can claim before their sibling does. This one runs itself for hours. Then you can even order pizza, eat it inside the fort, and call it a night.
3. Start a backyard herb garden.
Pick up a few small pots and a handful of seed packets, like basil or mint. Give each kid their own pot to name and water. Children who grow things have a funny habit of wanting to eat them, which is a miracle worth encouraging.
4. Run a neighbourhood scavenger hunt.
Write a list of things to spot or find on a walk. It could be anything, something red, something older than you, or a cloud shaped like an animal. Simple, costs nothing, and the competitive ones in the group will go absolutely feral (in a good way) for it. Finish with ice cream, and the winner gets to pick the flavour!
5. Set up a lemonade stand.
This activity is classic for a reason. There’s real-world maths in pricing the cups, entrepreneurship in making the signs, and a sense of pride in handing over something they made themselves. Then let them count the earnings at the end of the day like tiny, very serious accountants.
6. Learn a magic trick.
The internet has solid tutorials for beginner card tricks and coin illusions that even little ones can get the hang of with a bit of practice. Give a kid one afternoon with this and watch them spend the next two weeks ambushing every adult in the house with increasingly dramatic performances. (Tip: just nod and act amused every time.)
7. Do a tie-dye session.
Round up old white t-shirts, grab some rubber bands and a dye kit from the craft shop, and take the whole operation outside. The process is delightfully chaotic, and the results are always a pleasant surprise. Then you can all wear the shirts together and make an occasion of it.
8. Write letters to someone who’d love to get mail.
Grandparents, cousins who live far away, or a favourite teacher from the school year. Real letters are rare and lovely. Put a stamp on it, walk it to the postbox together, and talk about all the hands it’ll pass through before it arrives.
9. Make homemade popsicles.
Blend whatever fruit is in the house with a splash of juice or coconut water, pour into a mould (or a plastic cup with a craft stick propped in the middle), and freeze overnight. Let kids experiment with their own flavour combinations. They will eat things in a popsicle form that they would flatly refuse on a plate, and that is simply a rule of the universe. Use it accordingly.
10. Build a mini obstacle course.
Use whatever you have. Hula hoops to jump through, cushions to crawl under, a bucket to toss a rolled-up sock into, a line of tape to balance along. Time each kid and post the results on the fridge like official standings. Then let them redesign the course and run it again. And again. This one burns through energy at an impressive rate and somehow keeps going long after you thought it would wind down.
11. Go stargazing.
A blanket, a clear night, and a free stargazing app on your phone are all you need. Find one constellation together and let the conversation go wherever it goes. The conversations that happen lying on your back in the dark, looking up at the sky, tend to be some of the best ones of the whole summer.
12. Create a family comic strip.
Hand out paper and felt tips, give everyone the same prompt, and see what comes back. There are no wrong answers and no artistic standards required. These are often genuinely funny in ways that are hard to plan for, and they’re worth keeping somewhere safe. Pull them out in ten years, and everyone will lose it.
13. Explore your neighbourhood like a tourist.
Take a walk on a street you’ve never turned down. Kids who are told they’re on an “expedition” rather than a “walk” behave very differently about the whole endeavour.
14. Have a backyard movie night.
A projector is ideal but not necessary; a laptop propped on a table outside with a decent speaker does the job. Pile up every duvet and cushion in the house, make popcorn, and pick something everyone can agree on (good luck). The novelty of watching a film outside makes any film better.
15. Do a total room rearrangement.
Let kids redesign their own bedroom layout. Most children love having agency over their space and will spend the rest of the summer in a room that feels new, and come September, they’ll be heading back to school feeling like they’ve already had a fresh start. Costs nothing, and they’ll talk about it like they renovated the whole house.
16. Read outside.
Try the garden, a patch of shade at the park, the front step, or under a tree in the backyard. This is the one where you sit nearby with your own summer read, and everyone is miraculously, completely fine for a solid stretch of the afternoon.
17. Watch the sunrise or sunset together.
Pick a morning or an evening, find somewhere with a decent view, and actually go. It takes maybe twenty minutes, costs nothing, and has a way of feeling significant that’s hard to explain and easy to remember.
18. Try one completely new recipe.
Let the kids decide. Something they’ve seen somewhere and wondered about, or a cuisine the family hasn’t really tried before. Look up a beginner-friendly version together, shop for what you need, and make it as a team. Eat it together and rate it out of ten with genuine scoring criteria. Even a 3/10 will be a good time.
19. Put on a backyard talent show.
Give everyone a few days to prepare an act. It could be a song, a joke, or a magic trick they learned earlier in the summer, and then hold an actual show with an audience and someone acting as host. Applause is mandatory.
20. Make bird feeders.
Pine cones rolled in peanut butter and birdseed, or a simple platform feeder made from a milk carton. Hang them somewhere visible from a window, then look up which birds are common in your area and keep a running tally of who shows up.
21. Have a proper water play day.
Set up stations in the garden for water balloons, water guns, and a paddling pool with cups and funnels for pouring experiments. Works best on the hottest day of the summer. The mess mostly cleans itself up, which is more than can be said for most activities.
22. Have a picnic somewhere you’ve never been.
Pack some sandwiches, salads, and fried chicken, and go somewhere slightly new. The food is exactly the same food you’d eat at home, but it’ll taste completely different outside, and kids will tell you it’s the best lunch they’ve ever had.
23. Record a family podcast.
Pick a topic everyone has opinions on (best superhero, worst food, would you rather questions, a book or film you’ve all seen), and record a proper conversation about it on your phone. Give it a name. Play it back on a road trip later in the summer and prepare for some big laughs.
24. Host a blind taste test.
Pick a category (cookies, orange juices, crackers, chocolate bars) and buy a few different versions, cover the packaging, and score them. Everyone takes judging food extremely seriously, and the rankings are always controversial.
25. Learn to do something with your hands.
Knitting, origami, basic woodworking, learning to juggle, or getting the hang of a yo-yo. Pick something tactile and low-stakes and give it a proper go across a few sessions. The satisfaction of getting measurably better at something over a few weeks is genuinely good for kids. And if they end up teaching you, even better.
26. Let boredom happen.
This is the hardest one and possibly the most important. When a child announces they’re bored, the instinct is to immediately fix it. Resist that. Boredom is where imagination actually lives. Leave it alone for a bit and see what fills the space.
Not every day needs an activity, and not every activity needs a budget. Some of the best summer memories are the unplanned ones. Pick a few things from this list, scatter them across the weeks, and leave plenty of room for the stuff you didn’t plan. That’s usually where the good stuff lives. Happy summer!
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