Fill That Bucket! 25+ Ideas for Summer

Summer always has a way of arriving faster than we expect.
And leaving faster than we want.

And those in-between days? If we aren’t intentional, they can be over before you’ve finished rubbing in the sunscreen.

While I’m a big fan of letting kids feel bored, especially over the summer, a summer bucket list helps give those days a little direction without overplanning them. And by creating a list at the beginning of the summer, I’m ready the next time someone utters, “I’m bored.”

Here are some simple ideas to sprinkle into your summer.

Creative + Messy

• Paint rocks and “hide” them around your neighborhood for others to find
• Do driveway portraits where each family member draws another person (stick figures welcome!)
• Throw paint-filled eggs on an outdoor canvas.
• Make a paint slip-and-slide.
• Tape the paper inside your next Amazon box to the floor and turn it into a family art project that grows all week.
• Make sidewalk art with liquid sidewalk chalk.
• Make giant, homemade bubbles.

Summer Evenings

• Do a late-night “ice cream walk” (walk to get dessert instead of driving)
• Play flashlight tag
• Sit outside and rate summer sounds (crickets, fans, sprinklers, etc.)
• Make a weekly interview video. Family members can answer questions like, “What was the best thing you ate this week?” “What’s the weirdest flavor of ice cream you can dream up?” or “Who did you play with at the park today?” If you have older kids or teens, task them with compiling the best answers into a single video to watch at the end of the summer.

Kitchen Fun

• Do a blindfolded mystery taste test and try to guess different flavors.
• Choose your family’s favorite food varieties by holding a taste test of several varieties of citrus, apples, Doritos, frozen French fries, etc.
• Make brownie pops.
• Plan a ‘restaurant’ dinner using copycat recipes of your favorite restaurant meals.
• Plan a weekly snack plate meal. It’s a great way to use up leftovers, extra fruit, and random fridge finds.
• Do a color challenge meal where everything on the plate has to match a chosen color theme.

Outdoors—but not the usual outdoors

• Turn water balloons into a piñata-style game.
• Do a “slow walk” where the goal is to notice five tiny things no one else sees.
• Blow rainbow bubble snakes.
• Photograph the same tree or spot each week to watch how it changes through the summer.
• Sit quietly in one place and create sound maps by writing or drawing everything you hear.
• Make summer sponge bombs
• Do a photo scavenger hunt around town or your neighborhood using silly prompts

Something Different

• Make exploding sidewalk chalk.
• Have a “no talking dinner” and communicate only through writing or gestures
• Do a “blind drawing challenge” where everyone draws the same object without looking at their paper
• Make a summer soundtrack. (This is a great project for older kids.) Plan to play it at the same time every day, perhaps at the start of your day or during dinner prep/dinner time.
• Give out weekly silly family awards like “most pool-pruny skin,” “latest sleeper,” or “always reading.” Rotate the categories & selectee.
• Have a “$5 challenge” outing where each person plans an experience or outing with a small budget.