It’s that time of the year again. Parents are desperately looking for fun summer activities to keep children busy. This is especially true following a year of restricted movement and decreased social activity.
While you can focus on finding entertaining activities and even summer camps in some locales, you can also use the opportunity to work on special areas of development that can enhance your children's physical, emotional, and spiritual selves.
This might include opportunities to provide a community service, sharpen skills and enhance creativity, improve physical health, strengthen family ties, and increase attention to worship. Since there are still places where movement is limited and which pose challenges for children who are largely unvaccinated, parents will have to think about safety and think outside of the box.
Here are some ideas for fun summer activities for kids and that can also be productive. Any and all can be molded or shaped for children in every age group. And the best possible course is working on these areas together as a family. In many of these instances, the activity can be repeated with regularity throughout the summer.
Provide a Community Service
- Make a donation at a food bank.
- Offer to go to the grocery store for a neighbor.
- Clean up around your local Masjid.
- Organize a GoFundMe page for someone in need.
- Be an advocate for social justice (check out our Justice for All website for the latest action alerts on a variety of global challenges)
Sharpen Skills or Develop New Ones
- Learn a new language or enhance one you are working on.
- Watch a how-to video each week.
- Listen to a TEDEd talk (this is one of our favorites - The Chemistry of Baking Cookies).
- Read a book and publish a review online.
- Check out an engineering video at Joseph's Machines and then work on your own design!
Enhance Creativity
- Try your hand at creative writing.
- Read a book of poetry.
- Create your own superhero and draw a comic strip.
- Try your hand at painting.
- Find a pattern and make your own masks.
Improve Physical Health
- Start a daily exercise regime.
- Take a bike ride around your neighborhood.
- Head out into the sun for some Vitamin D (but be careful not to overdo it).
- Watch your water intake daily.
- Cut out sugary treats and replace them with fruits and nuts.
Strengthen Family Ties
- Plan a family BBQ and ask everyone to bring something to share.
- Take turns making dinner (and try new things).
- Dig out old photos and reminisce about times past.
- Pick a "family game night" and take turns choosing what to play.
- Tackle a jigsaw puzzle and set a deadline to finish it!
Increase Attention to Worship
- Make a habit of reciting the morning Adkar (supplications).
- Pledge to make Fajr prayer on time daily (and make it in congregation).
- Set a goal to learn a new Surah each week.
- Listen to a recitation of your favorite reciter of the Quran.
- Perfect your Salat by improving your pronunciation and by learning the meaning.
- And finally, as this last suggestion touches all of these areas above, check out Adam’s World Club and Colors of Islam Club online classes. Our hosts use music, arts, storytelling, and humor to engage children in an exploration of their world through a very special Islamic lens.
Adam’s World Club classes are designed for children 4 to 7 years and are held weekdays.
Colors of Islam Club classes are geared for children 8 to 12 years and held on weekends.
We are working on a full summer line-up. Check out the details for both at adamsworld.org
Hope some of these fun summer activities will be added to your plans for the months ahead. Enjoy and be safe!
(05/28/2021)
Add new comment