First Day of Summer Celebration Ideas

The long and tiresome school days are coming to an end, time to gear up for water fun, family outings, and sweet summer days. A great way to mark the beginning of 3 months of freedom is to create a small celebration on your child’s first official day of summer vacation. This can include decorating, summer gifts, fun snacks and food. We homeschool, and whether your child is homeschooled also or attends a brick and mortar school summer just has its own feeling and fun so I like to commemorate the beginning of our break in June by surprising the kids with a bucket of fun to get them started with some summer fun ( Think Summer Easter Basket). Take $20.00 and fill up a sand bucket, basket, or tub with fun items to play with this summer.

Most items for their surprise bucket I picked up a Dollar Tree, which makes for an inexpensive and varied gift. I included; bubbles, candy, a crazy straw, a kit, sunglasses, sidewalk chalk, a water gun, water balloons, and punch balloons.

Some other ideas for your bucket are:

A waterproof deck of cards
A Yo-Yo
Fruit Snacks
Items to make S’more’s
Water wings
Yard games
glow sticks
Flip flops
sun hat
sunblock
Popsicle Molds
Bubble gun
sand toy
baton
bike decorations
sparklers
gardening tools and seeds
binoculars for bird watching
bug keepers
butterfly net
temporary tattoos

First Day of Summer Celebration Ideas

To commemorate their first day of summer in a fun way you can also create a theme their breakfast, lunch, dinner, or snack. For our midmorning snack I served a Lemonade juice pouch, applesauce, and mini “S’mores”- graham crackers spread with Nutella and topped with a couple mini marshmallows, nothing says summer like lemonade and smore’s! Use summer themed cookie cutters to make ordinary pancakes, sandwiches, or sugar cookies a special event.. These can be used again and again all summer long to create fun shaped foods.

If you haven’t already take some time to help your child create a bucket list of ideas for things they would like to do, see, and accomplish this summer. Make a mix of simple ideas like crafts, cooking- things that can be done around the home and yard, plan day trips, and visits to local parks and theme parks.

Make it fun by decorating! Hang crepe paper streamers and balloons from their door frame, the front door, on the porch or anywhere you want to carry the celebration. Use special plates and napkins at meals (I keep leftovers from all our birthdays to reserve for special snacks and meals) Use colored straws in their drinks , bright confetti sprinkled across the table, create a welcome to summer poster. Setting a fun and festive mood will get your summer off on the right note, make this summer memorable, you only get 18 or so of them- so make them count!