Fun summer activities for kids: ideas you’ll want to try in childcare and at home
In the hot summer, children spend more time indoors both at daycare and at home.
For those wondering, “What can we play indoors with the kids?”, here are some perfect summer activities.
Games using water and ice are especially popular this season.
Cool sensations and hands-on activities are exciting for children.
It’s also a great experience to help them feel connected to nature or to incorporate traditional summer events—these memories really stay with kids.
Try these ideas at home, in daycare, or in kindergarten.
Through summertime activities, let’s help children create lots of fun memories!
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Fun summer activities for kids: Ideas you’ll want to try at daycare and at home (91–100)
Making slime
Let’s try making and playing with slime that has an indescribably pleasant, satisfying texture! You might wonder, “Can you really make slime?”—but with laundry glue, water, and borax, you can.
Thoroughly mix the laundry glue and water, then add a borax solution and stir it around; it will start to thicken and turn into slime.
Once it holds together, pick it up and play with it.
It could be fun to add color using food coloring or paint.
Kids are sure to be captivated by the soft, squishy feel!
Bath bomb making
Bath bombs are so fun to watch as they fizz and dissolve when you pop them into the tub.
Did you know you can make them yourself? How about making some with your kids and having a little playtime? All you need are baking soda, citric acid, and food coloring.
Mix the baking soda and citric acid, then add your preferred color of food coloring to tint the mixture.
Pack the mixture firmly into silicone molds and let it dry—that’s it! We recommend using character-shaped silicone molds sold at 100-yen shops.
Fill a large basin with water and enjoy the fizz as they dissolve!
Light play
Drawings of ghosts and black cats that float eerily on the wall of a dark room… a shadow play using light that gives you a bit of a test-of-courage vibe.
What you need: a toilet paper roll, plastic wrap, a rubber band, and a permanent marker.
Cover one end of the toilet paper roll with plastic wrap and secure it tightly with the rubber band.
Draw your picture on the plastic wrap, and you’re done.
Shine your smartphone’s light from the opposite side of the wrap, and the drawing you made will appear on the wall! If you prepare several rolls with different drawings and shine the light on them one after another, the images will appear in sequence and make for a fun show.
Summer vegetable stamps
This is a playful activity where you turn familiar, everyday vegetables into stamps.
Instead of only seeing vegetables at the supermarket or once they’re cooked, pick them up, touch them, and enjoy playing with them.
Summer vegetables in season—like okra—have star-shaped cross sections that look adorable when stamped.
Exploring the cross sections of different vegetables will spark conversation: Which shapes? Which colors to stamp with? Try stamping not only on drawing paper but also on plain cotton cloth to make your own tenugui hand towel.
Water gun target game
This is a simple game using classic water guns in the hot summer, where you compete to see how many targets you can hit within a time limit.
Don’t just focus on target practice—also pay attention to how water guns work by building pressure to push water out.
It’s also recommended to try a DIY approach using basic materials to think about mechanisms like pushing water in with a rod that seals gaps and shooting water out through a nozzle.
Get creative with the durability and distance of the targets, and consider how much water force is needed to knock them down.
