7 Summer Homeschool Ideas

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A big thank you to Kimberley McGee from The Homeschool Café for sharing these fun summer homeschool ideas. Kimberley is a homeschool mama of twins, award-winning journalist and freelance writer in Las Vegas. Find her on her blog for homeschool inspiration, tips and more.

Summer! And homeschooling may not be so easy. It can be hard to get kids, and you, motivated to continue to homeschool when it’s so beautiful outdoors and there are more exciting things to do. 

The flexibility of homeschooling provides the opportunity to cultivate a learning-rich environment any time of year. Jazz up those summer homeschool months (or anytime, really) with unusual ways to get a little education into your homeschool days. 

Gameschooling for the Win

I had never heard of gameschooling until we started homeschooling. So, I did a deep dive into what it was all about. I realized we’d been gameschooling since our peek-a-boo days! Seriously. 

The benefits of gameschooling are huge. The simplest games include reading, writing, critical thinking and math. Playing games teaches them to be social, read those non-verbal cues, builds their confidence as well as those social and communication skills.

There’s the classics, such as Monopoly, which teaches math, reading and critical thinking, or Scrabble and Boggle, which can sharpen those spelling skills.

However, there has been an explosion in games for homeschool. I can’t name them all, but these are some we’ve really enjoyed age 8+. If your child loves Among Us, they may really like Ultimate Werewolf. It’s a fast-paced reasoning game where you are assigned a role, werewolf being one of them, and players have five minutes to identify the werewolf. 

Brush up on your science with the Periodic Game of the Elements. It’s not as dull as this non-science mom expected. My twins loved it and learned quite a lot.

Give the National Parks a turn from home with Trekking the National Parks board game. The park cards feature gorgeous photographs and interesting facts about the region and history. There is also the Trekking the World board game to explore other countries.

Riddles by Room

This is a hybrid escape room/treasure hunt game. Assign each room in your home a number. For example, give the living room 10 points, each child’s bedroom 5, bathroom 2, dining room 4 and the kitchen 1. Use enough variables to make the adding and subtracting riddles easier to craft.

You can make this as easy or as hard as you like. Older kids can make their own riddles for siblings to solve to find a hidden item at the end. At the culmination of each riddle or series of riddle, have a worthwhile reward or treat.

Here’s a quick example:

The living room – dining room + the kitchen = ? (kids’ room, where they will find the next riddle or a prize)

At the end, the seeker will earn a treat, a small prize or coupon for screen time. 

I once made a riddle series that had the kids wandering around the house for a good hour to solve the riddle and earn screen time. I placed the next riddle on an item in the room that would make them giggle, such as the poop emoji pillow or taped to the toilet lid. It was blissful to hear them working together, giggling and generally keeping busy while I did what I needed to get done (or nothing at all!). 

Indoor Treasure Hunts 

Treasure hunts at home hone math, critical thinking, reading and sharing skills in your homeschool.

A classic treasure hunt to play at home is hot or cold. Hide something in a room or choose an item in the room that they need to find.

The other players then come into the room when the player is ready and have to search for the item. As they move around the room, the treasure hunter guide can let them know if they are close by saying they are cold (far away) or warmer (close) or burning up (you’re standing next to it!).

This can be modified to find letters that spell out a vocabulary word or numbers that add up to 10 or a preset number. Use magnetic alphabet letters or blocks to hide in the room.

Outdoor Treasure Hunts 

We created a neighborhood treasure hunt during the pandemic that has become a part of our regular homeschool! Spelling out or writing our vocabulary words can be so boring. Each kid randomly chooses one of our vocabulary words and rides around the neighborhood and writes the letters on light poles in random order. You can also use trees to hang letters or Scrabble tiles in the yard.

We used light poles because it was big enough for them to see on their bikes and the dry eraser marker we use to draw the letters come off with a bit of rubbing alcohol. We write the letters on light poles along one main street in the neighborhood. Then the other child has to ride around, find the letters and unscramble them.

Find Out More with Field Trips 

Take your homeschool on the road! Even if you just go for a day to a lake or mountain, study the region and learn about the birds, the flora and the geography. Many museums, zoos and parks offer discounts for homeschool families. Through the remainder of the school year, National parks, forests, grasslands, wildlife refuges and other public lands and waters are free for fifth graders!

Cooking for Learning

Dive deep into a culture with documentaries, books and dishes that you and the kids can cook. Explore the world from your home this summer with a few good meals that will make memories. 

Cook recipes from around the world or choose one country or region to concentrate on. Or pair your homeschool cooking efforts with a genealogy study unit. Build your family tree and trace your roots with recipes from your childhood or from the area where the family originated or traveled through.

Creative Obstacle Courses

An obstacle course is great for agility and physical fitness, and it’s just plain fun. 

Littles can wind through the obstacle course to ring a bell or blow bubbles. Make the end of the obstacle a fun activity to get them excited. Spice it up and introduce water balloons, water guns or super soakers! 

I raid the dollar store for plastic cones, hula hoops, Styrofoam airplanes, plastic cups and anything else I can turn into an obstacle, target or outdoor game. Stagger cones, or cups upside down, for kids to wind through as they move from one obstacle to another. You can do a timed obstacle course and up the difficulty factor by having a sibling, or you, fly the Styrofoam airplanes at the player. We also have used water balloons, squirt guns, Nerf or another soft object. This may depend on each of your child’s tolerance, but it can be a lot of fun and lead to loads of giggles. 

You can add in homeschool components. Give each part of the obstacle course a value. Yell out a number they have to add up and they have to complete the obstacle part to get to the number.

Or draw an A, B, and C on the wall. Have multiple questions from a study unit for kids to spray, throw a water balloon or Nerf gun at the correct letter for the answer on the wall. 

There you have it! Some fun ideas to engage your kids this summer. Have you tried any of these? Share your favorite summer homeschool activities in the comments!