Activity Basket for Kids: Summer Themed!

My girls absolutely adore their weekly activity baskets!  This week’s activity basket for kids is summer themed – fun!

If you’ve seen the other activity baskets I’ve shared, you know that my financial goal for these baskets is $5 or less, and this basket definitely met that goal.

The only things brand new in the basket are the mini coloring books I printed and the colored pencils.

Activity Basket for Kids: Summer Themed!

In case this is your first time reading about my activity baskets, here’s the low down:

The whole goal of these baskets is to:
1) offer my girls (ages 6 and 4) an independent activity that they can take out and put back alone
2) offer them a fun, creative outlet to prevent the ‘I’m bored!’s
3) create a fun little project just for them – it makes them feel so special!

This summer themed activity basket has 3 small activities: mini-coloring pages with colored pencils, my girls’ summer doll house items, and Summer by Alice Low.

The key to putting these baskets together on the cheap is to use items around the house we already have.

Because I am putting them together in a different way, the toys and items seem brand-new to my girls all over again.  Total win-win!

In this week’s set, I’m using our same little $1 basket from Wal-Mart.  With the school sales going on, I’ll probably pick up a couple of new ones in the coming weeks.

Also included in this set:

♥ Summer Coloring Pages: At the Beach!

♥ Summer Coloring Pages: At the Pool!

♥ pack of colored pencils

♥ All of the doll house items I could find that were summer-themed

♥ Summer by Alice Low

I arranged all of the items neatly in the basket and waited for my favorite part: the girls to discover it!

This time, my 8-year-old daughter helped me gather the doll house items and arrange the basket.  She was excited as I was to make this “gift” for her sisters!

Summer Coloring Pages

If you’ve been a reader here at Mama’s for long, you know that my girls adore coloring pages, and I make a lot of them.

I printed the set of At the Pool! and At the Beach! coloring pages and assembled them.

Usually, I would have the girls assemble the books with my help, however I wanted their basket to be open-and-go, so I went ahead and put them together.

Doll House Summer Items

My 8-year-old daughter and I sorted through our large bin of doll house items to find anything that might be remotely summer themed.

My 4 year old still uses our doll house almost daily, as she has an incredible imagination and still enjoys that kind of play.  So would she turn up her nose at the toys that she uses daily?

Definitely not!

Because they were in a different type of play scenario, she saw them with fresh eyes.

Several of the items we chose were a bit of a stretch to be summer themed, but I think that just adds to the beauty of the summer activity basket.

There’s nothing wrong with having to stretch the imagination just a little!

Summer By Alice Low

I was slightly hesitant to put the book in the basket because the whole goal is to provide only a few activities so they don’t feel overwhelmed with choices.

I’ve found that if my girls occasionally have fewer choices, they find more enjoyment with the items with which they’re playing.

They do both love to look at books, so I decided at the last minute to add Summer.

It was a hit and not distracting at all!

If you’d like to make Activity Baskets for your own children, make sure you stop by and look at the other ideas:

→ Activity Basket for Kids: I Can Draw Animals!

→ Activity Basket for Kids: Stamp Set!

Lauren Hill

Lauren Hill is a Christian mom to 5, ages 19 to 7. She homeschools her children in the classical education tradition and is currently in her 15th year of homeschool. She creates engaging worksheets and hands-on printable activities for Preschool and Elementary age children to supplement their daily studies.

See Full Bio

Homeschool Classical Education Worksheets Printable Activities