Summer activities | 130 garden adventures for kids

Summer activities for kids are cheap if you open the back door and set the kids free. The garden is an amazing adventure playground! In the days before digital kids were happy to dig a hole in the garden. They were content to study a snail in the wild or jump on a trampoline until the sun went down.

Summer activities in my childhood included silly acts like eating cake and collecting up prickles in our t-shirts. When we had enough ‘ammo’ we’d throw them over the neighbours fence until we got told off. We’d play Elastics until someone cheated and we’d make up silly songs. We had a long list of songs including one about the most sickening foods ever. We’d stage dress-ups and talent shows in the garage to songs like ‘We’re the kids in America.’

These days I spend my weekends delivering a small gang of children into the great outdoors. These kids include two of my own, two kids from next door and one kid from across the road. They grace our living room most Saturday afternoons. It is my job to get these kids off their digital devices and into the garden. Alternatively, I will send them to the park next door to rustle around in the trees or hang around the monkey bars. But as I bid goodbye to this fresh-eyed gang of spirited kids, I catch them sneaking iPods into pockets.

They think, in all their worldly knowledge, that this ole’ lady won’t notice.

I’ve become Army-Sergeant-like about these kids and line them up on the porch. Each child will pass me their respective iPod with a look of dismay or sadness. I’ve even had resentment. That came from my three-turning-thirty, but I forgave her because she doesn’t know what she’s doing yet.

As the iPod-Sergeant, I feel like one of my old Aunties. The one who wouldn’t let me have the second helping of Upside Down Pineapple Cake because I was ‘getting too fat.’ Except I attempt the whole Army Sergeant routine in a comical, non-threatening way, which involves not calling anyone a name or fracturing any young person’s hope at self-esteem.

At the very least, when these kids grow up, I hope they won’t blame me for any of their adult hang-ups. I’m picturing a gangly googly-eyed spectacle-wearing iPod-loving therapist bad-mouthing me during a weekly session with one of these kids.

That wouldn’t be good, for the kid anyway…

Anyway, after their return from ‘the wild’ (i.e visit to the park), the faces of these kids are fresh. They look rosy-faced and alive after their humble game of chasey and making daisy chains in the sun, for, in their words, ‘way too long.’ They would admit to me what fun that was, if I was anyone other than the woman holding their precious iPods for ransom. But what these little cherubs don’t know is that I’ve got a cheat sheet (a very special weapon) that is going to keep their iPod-loving gang busy well into their teens. And they think they can pull the wool over my eyes because they’re so hip and ‘digital.’ Mmmm…..

So here is that long list I’ve created.

130 garden adventures for kids

Stick this list on the fridge over the holidays as a quick reference. Access it for cheap and quick summer activities to keep kids refreshed and to give them a digital break. (Pssst…you can access the list on your phone too – just don’t tell the kids.)

Of course, if you have any great ideas yourself – please submit them in the comments!

Your ideas will help grow more kids with creative minds and vivid imaginations!

Lookout Minecraft! Here come a new wave of mothers and we are ready for YOU 🙂