10 Easy Summer Activities to do at Home with Little Boys
Brandon Morgan @littleppl85 via Shutterstock
Gerhard and I grew up in large families with lots of boys. Besides being the oldest in our families, we also both worked at children’s summer camps, so we have acquired a full arsenal of fun things to do with kids—boys in particular. Gerhard has five younger brothers and I have seven younger brothers. And together, we have four young boys.
Just as a caveat, we are not always actively engaging in play with our boys, but we do often give them ideas of what they can do for fun. Usually what this looks like is that one of us will play with the kids for fifteen minutes to half an hour. We show them how to play the game, teach them some rules if needed, and then step out. Sometimes I will sit nearby and read a book once they’ve caught on to the activity. Or, I will continue to play with them that day and on another day they will take up the activity themselves.
Just a note on length: don’t be surprised if your youngest guys struggle to hold their attention span for any one activity. This is normal, especially when they are under two years old. I don’t expect a boy younger than 1.5 years to sustain an activity without needing my intervention for longer than fifteen minutes. At two years old, a boy may hold his attention for up to twenty minutes. Between two and five, I see my boys sustain their attention for up to 40min. Even my six-year old has trouble with any activity—no matter how fun—for longer than that. The key is that the activity doesn’t have to change completely, you can add alterations that will keep them going for longer. But in the long run, the reality is that little kids, my boys especially, get bored quickly. Expect that, and don’t let it upset you.
A note on body breaks: boys like activities that allow them to move around. They may remain captivated by a book for some time, even colouring, but it usually won’t be for very long. You know a boy needs to move around when he starts getting into a petty fight with a sibling. So after an activity has phased out, either because of boredom or because of fighting, get them to stand up and move around.
Most importantly, these activities hardly cost anything except a little imagination!
Here are some fun activities we like to do with our boys, especially in the summer:
Exploring Nature: Get into the grass and start noticing what you see. Use a magnifying glass, notebook and pencil if you have them. Notice the different flowers or weeds, and try to look for bugs. Explore an ant hill or look at animal footprints.
Chalk race track: The boys and I drew a chalk race track on the driveway. When they got tired of using their bikes, we tried the track with scooters, and then with their toy monster trucks. To spice things up, we added some “features” with chalk, like lines that meant “speed up” and others that meant “slow down.” Then one of my sons wanted to add fake puddles, and another wanted to add a start line. There are many other things you can do with chalk, such as colouring the deck, practicing letters and shapes, and playing hopscotch.
Books. Even through the summer, we visit the library every other week. Boys seem especially attracted to non-fiction books, especially if they are pre-readers. Get them books about trucks, animals, dinosaurs, and space. You’d be surprised how fascinated they are by the pictures alone.
Race around the tree. When our boys are full of their sillies after supper, we tell them to go run around the big blue spruce in our backyard. We tell them to do it “ten times.” Sometimes I help them count but other times they just get into the swing of it and just have lots of fun running in circles, literally. You can add a bit of spice to it by telling the boys that it’s a race. You can also have an object, like a stick, that they have to jump over as they come past. There are many variations, such as on a rainy day we resort to the indoor version called “Up and Down the Stairs.” You’d be surprised how much they enjoy this.
Making forts. Almost any kind of material can be used to make a fort, but the favourite is a sheet over a table. Another easy one is to use the cushions on the couch. Alternatively, you can buy foam tiles that lock together (used on the floors of gyms or children’s play areas) and form these into “houses.” Forts can also be built outside using sticks placed in a circle or square. The walls don’t have to be very high. But if you have a wood nearby, the boys will spend countless hours, day after day, piling the sticks on their fort.
Army guys. Childhood memories of our brothers involve playing with army guys. If you bring the army guys outside in the summer, you can create mini forts for them with sticks and stones. The boys can also create weapons of war, such as slingshots or even catapults. Don’t be surprised or appalled if you don’t like war games. As my mother experienced, take away their toy guns and then everything becomes a gun, from hockey sticks to Lego. Her attitude was to just accept that boys are very attracted to war games. We have some rules around guns, such as not pointing a gun at anyone who does not have a gun themselves. Alternatively, my kids like to play with Star Wars figures, pirates, or other action figures so there are some variations of this imaginative role-playing.
A patch of dirt and some shovels. My boys like to pretend that they are workers. They will often help me with real work, but they prefer just to do their own thing. And whether it’s real or not, they like to take their work seriously. If it’s a sandbox or literally just a patch of dirt, give them some shovels and they will dig a hole—and have a lot of fun doing it. Alternatively, if you don’t tell them where they can dig, they may tear up the yard in other places in an attempt to “do some work.” They will stop digging everywhere if they are told they can only dig in a certain place. We have a small yard, but we put a garden bed with a board around it where I allowed them to dig there. It had specific parameters and gave me more peace of mind when they were in the mood to tear up the ground. Add some sturdy outdoor trucks and then the boys will be in high heaven in their “construction zone.”
Climb a tree. The rule we go by for trees is that you should only go as high as you feel comfortable coming down. Recently my two-year-old climbed 20ft up a spruce tree and refused to come back down on his own. Yep, I had to go up and get him. But thankfully I didn’t have to call a fire truck. Normally young children can’t get up the first branch, but one of the other boys had pushed a toy under the tree to make it easier for him to climb up. I think the worst thing to do is to tell a boy to “be careful” when he’s partway up the tree. This only makes the kid anxious and more likely to fall. If you feel uncomfortable, say something like “how are you doing?” to get a sense of where the kid is at. If he says he is nervous, tell him to make his way down. As much as you can coach him so he can learn to do it himself. This teaches the boy to develop his own sense of safety, which is necessary because we can’t always be watching.
Paint the deck with water. The boys love playing with water. We like to turn on the hose or sprinkler and let them spray each other on hot days. Alternatively, you can fill a bucket with water and give them each a big paint brush and tell them to “paint” the deck, or the house, or what have you. The water darkens the wood and gives them the sensation they are actually painting. This is an idea I got from my mother-in-law.
Give them tools. With the tools the boys pretend to fix things in the yard, from the table to the chairs. An alternative to this game is fireman, when we pretend something in the yard is on fire and the boys have to go and put the fire out with their “equipment” (whatever that might be.
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I want to share with you what I learned about blocked care and give you hope that we can overcome the conflicts we experience with our children. That these ill-feelings are not just the result of poor parenting techniques or broken children, but sometimes they arise from our own overtaxed or even underdeveloped parenting brains. And there are ways to help our brain parent better.