The Ultimate Summer Bucket List for Preschoolers

If you’re anything like me you’ll be looking forward to the summer holidays with a sense of excitement and mild fear. Hurray you get to spend more time with your kids but, uh-oh! How on earth are you going to cope all summer now the Big Kids are everywhere and oh my days how are you going to afford it too?! I love looking through summer bucket lists and bored jar lists for ideas on what to do with my kids, but as they’re often aimed at older kids they’re not always that great for me, I can’t tell my preschooler to go read a book or write messages in invisible ink! With that in mind I thought I’d share some ideas for a summer bucket list for preschoolers, this isn’t possibly the one my kids would write (that’d include EuroDisney, Alton Towers and Legoland) but it does have loads of achievable but fun things to do with your kids. I’m sure there’s lots of them that you could do with older kids too and do feel free to leave your own ideas at the end – us parents have got to help each other!

1. Try Geocaching
2. Go on a scavenger hunt
3. Visit a park you haven’t been to before
4. Visit a Superworm Activity Trail, we went to one and loved it!
5. Make a teepee for your toys
6. Draw on your pathway in chalk
7. Do some colouring in – there’s 90 free pages here!
8. Try painting with vegetables! I love this idea to print with an okra.
9. Make a den in your front room
10. Hunt for bugs – fun in the park, woods, in your garden or do what we do and hunt on the way to Tescos!
11. Make a suncatcher
12. Bake fairy cakes
13. Make playdough
14. Make a bubble snake
15. Roll down hills (yes, I have a preschooler, yes, he loves rolling down hills)
    

    Girl in sun image via Shutterstock

16. Video your kids dancing on your phone, kids love to perform!
17. Visit your local library
18. Make Dragons eggs
19. Make a fairy garden, there’s 15 to inspire you here.
20. Move around the room like different animals, a horse, a lion, a dolphin (this keeps my kids entertained for ages!)
21. Freeze your toys in water
22. Play hopscotch
23. Visit a Pick Your Own farm
24. Make slime
25. ‘Paint’ your garden fence with water
26. Play with Duplo
27. Give your toys a bath in the sink, let them have a swim in it!
28. Make ‘magic milk’
29. Make a necklace from pasta shapes
30. Plant some flowers or vegetables
31. Make a Cheerio bird feeder
32. Give your toys a tea party
33. Make popcorn and watch a film together
34. Make kinetic sand
35. Read a story together
    

    Happy girl image via Shutterstock

36. Feed some ducks
37. Plant some cress heads, don’t forget to draw their faces!
38. Make a puppet show – if you don’t have puppets just draw faces on your fingers!
39. Make a paper plate sun
40. Use your toy cars and trains to paint with
41. Go swimming
42. Visit a local museum
43. Visit a local pet shop, lots of them have events during the holidays where you can get up close with the animals
44. Throw stones in the sea
45. Make mud pies
46. Make a watering can from a milk bottle
47. Do a colour nature hunt
48. Make a painting using flowers instead of brushes
49. Take a bus ride to the next stop
50. Decorate biscuits (totally acceptable to buy digestives for this one, I can’t cook biscuits!)