Are you trying to come up with fun things to do at home in the summer to keep your kids occupied? You won’t want to miss out on these hobbies for your kids to explore at home! Scroll down to see them all!
This post about fun things to do at home in the summer with kids was written by family travel expert Marcie Cheung and contains affiliate links which means if you purchase something from one of my affiliate links, I may earn a small commission that goes back into maintaining this blog.
With more kids than ever home during summer vacation, it can be hard to come up with fun kids activities that are fun and affordable.
Helping your children to find a hobby allows them to explore the world around them and find things that interest them enough to want to learn more on their own.
Oftentimes, hobbies that are discovered as children become lifelong passions, that they can one day share with their children.
During the summer months, while kids are out of school is an excellent time to encourage your kids to find a hobby of their own.
Here you will find a list of hobbies that your kids may enjoy exploring this summer on their own, or as a family activity, you can all do together.
8 Fun Things to Do At Home in the Summer with Kids:
Gardening
Gardening is an excellent hobby for kids to explore. Watching their own flowers and vegetables grow instills a sense of responsibility and an awareness of the environment around them.
Knowing how to grow flowers, fruits, and vegetables is also a skill that can help them to provide for themselves for the rest of their lives.
If you don’t have enough outdoor space for gardening, or you live in an apartment, you can always let your child plant some herbs in a windowsill that you can use for preparing meals.
To make it a bit more fun, get your kids this adorable gardening set so they can dress up as they learn how to plant a garden. Or have them plant flowers and paint little signs with this cute flower growing kit.
Dance & Choreography
Dance classes may be canceled in person for now, but that doesn’t mean your kids can’t explore dance and choreography as a hobby at home this summer.
There are lots of YouTube channels devoted to teaching dance and choreography to kids of all ages and abilities from beginner to advanced. Learn easy choreography to an Ariana Grande song or “Can’t Stop The Feeling” with the KIDZ BOP Kids.
Practicing dance helps to keep your kids fit and physically active as well as boosting their self-confidence and enhancing their coordination skills.
And, if you remember doing Dance Dance Revolution when you were growing up, there’s a fun light up dance mat so your kids can try it out for themselves!
Sketching
Does your child enjoy art and drawing? If so, why not grab them a sketch pad and some drawing pencils and encourage them to let their imaginations go wild.
You don’t have to buy any special equipment if you already have paper or note pads, and pencils at home. If your child really gets into sketching then you might consider the sketch pad, and specialty sketch pencils.
There are lots of YouTube videos that will teach your child the basics of sketching, and you can also search on Instagram with the hashtag #artteachersofinstagram for lots of helpful resources.
Our family always loves doing the Animation Academy when we visit Disneyland, so we’ve been loving these YouTube videos on how to sketch Disney characters.
Cooking and Baking
Cooking and baking are essential life skills to learn, but they can make for a great hobby as well. You never know, you might just have the next kid’s cooking or baking champion on your hands!
From making bread to exploring how different flavors work together, and new cooking techniques there is so much to be learned by exploring in the kitchen. This hobby is a great way to spend time as a family as you prepare and enjoy meals together.
Mastering the skills of cooking and baking helps to build confidence and self-esteem, and they are a nice way to sneak in a little bit of math and science too.
Our family loves watching MasterChef Juniord together, as our kids can see other kids cooking and trying new skills. There’s a whole line of MasterChef Junior cooking supplies and recipes that are easy for kids to follow. You can watch the show and then have your kids try it out for themselves.
If you’re like your kids to bake independently, this is a cool baking set with pre-measured ingredients as they are learning to bake.
Sewing, Knitting, Crocheting, or Quilting
Learning how to sew, knit, crochet, or quilt are all excellent skills for children to learn at home this summer.
Learning how to do any or all of these activities is a skill that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives, and sadly many of these skills are slowly being forgotten as people spend more time with technology than they do with hands-on skills like these.
Many tutorial videos on YouTube can help you to learn all of these skills, and you can also find kits online with everything you need to get started.
Even younger children can learn how to sew with plastic needlepoint kits, which are wonderful at helping them to develop their fine and gross motor skills.
Older kids will love learning to sew with this adorable felt animal kit or funny monster kit. And kids of all ages can master this loom kit.
Coding
Does your child enjoy technology, apps, and video games? If so, they may enjoy the hobby of coding.
Coding is the programming language that computers use to tell them what to do and how to operate. By learning how to code your child can learn how to create video games, apps, websites, and more.
There are lots of free tutorials online, and even free games that can teach children how to code and program in a fun and interactive way. Learning to code builds confidence, problem-solving skills, math skills, creativity, and communication skills.
We have the Code and Go Robot Mouse Kit that has been fun for preschoolers/kindergartners trying to get the concept of coding.
There are also a TON of coding camps and online classes available if your kids end up really getting into it.
Origami
Origami is the art of folding paper into intricate shapes, thought to have originated in Japanese culture. Origami is a simple hobby for kids to explore at home this summer because all that they need to get started is paper.
While it’s super cute to use origami paper, you can also use any paper you have laying around. You just need to cut it to form a perfect square.
Not only are origami sculptures beautiful, but this ancient art of paper folding also teaches important skills such as problem-solving, geometry, fractions, and critical thinking.
There are lots of video tutorials available for free online that can teach your kids the art of origami, and you can also find step by step books that teach this hobby as well. I recommend starting with video for younger kids so they can learn the different folds easier.
And if you want to make it a family activity (or have older teens), check out these books for Star Wars origami, Harry Potter origami, and Disney origami.
Scrapbooking
Scrapbooking is another hobby that your children may enjoy exploring at home this summer. There are lots of fun scrapbooking kits available, but you can put your own scrapbook materials together at home too.
You can fill your scrapbooking kit with paper, scissors, markers, glitter or paint pens, sequins, buttons, glue, feathers, and more. That is the beauty of scrapbooking with kids, anything goes and just let the creativity flow.
Right now might be a great time to build a scrapbook as a family documenting the current quarantine and how your family is dealing with it. It will be a historical document for generations of your family down the road.
The fun things to do at home in the summer listed above are certainly not the only ones that your children can explore at home this summer, but it is a good place to start.
If you find that none of these hobbies are especially interesting to your child, sit down together and talk about what does interest them and what they would enjoy. You can also search online together for “hobbies for kids” and you may find activities that neither of you had even considered yet.
Whatever fun things you do at home, have fun and learn together as a family this season!