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30+ Summer Activities for Middle School Kids

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Summertime is not just for young children. These 30 summer activities for middle school kids will not only keep them engaged, but it allows them to burn some of the energy they have in reserve during the long year of schooling. Also, look at my page homeschool middle school for more fun tips.

I have gathered up 30 ideas and I’m hoping one of them will inspire you and your kids to savor the moments of homeschooling middle school. They go by fast.

30 Summer Activities for Middle School Kids
  • Play games. My bunch still loves games like Checkers and Life and any type of card game.
  • Try a new sport. Though my boys love traditional sports, they have been trying ping pong lately.
  • Take a craft class together. My friend Cynthia and her son did a pottery class together.

Summer Activities for Middle School

  • Take up singing. Don’t worry if you can’t carry a note. I bought a karaoke machine before we left the states and we loved practicing our singing at the house.
  • Check out some summer classes at the museum or zoo.
  • Create a summer reading list together. Give your children more latitude in deciding what they want to read. Everyone needs to read books that are just for sheer joy.
  • Volunteer at a pet shelter. If you have an animal lover and they are a bit mature, pet shelters are always looking for responsible volunteers.
  • Take up baking. Most kids this age either love to cook or bake.  Chocolate chip cookies are a great motivator with my boys in learning how to bake.

Homeschooling Middle School Kids

  • Ice skating. My boys love to iceskate in the summer when the days are hot. It also burns off excess energy. I love the quiet and calm at home when we come back because they are too tired to start any sibling rivalry.
  • Take them to a homeschool convention.  You know they don’t just sell curriculum there. My boys picked out hands-on science projects and crafts they liked to do. It can also be an opportunity for them to look at curriculum they will be using in the upper grades.
Middle School Kids can create a terrarium @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus
  • Swimming. No need to say more.
  • Take up dance classes. Normally in summer the classes are smaller and I find that students get more attention. If you live in place where it’s so hot that you can’t get outdoors for part of the day, an inside activity is a cool relief. We loved the classes offered by Arthur Murray studios.

Summer Learning Ideas for Teens

  • Learn programming. Tiny actually has an interest in this and we might give this a try this summer.
  • Mentoring. Is your child a care giver? Then he or she might enjoy looking at summer programs where they can mentor.
  • Gardening or even container gardening. How long has it been since you made a terrarium?
The Basement Workshop Store

Don’t forget summer is a great time to do a living book and hands-on science exploring about plants, fruits and nuts!

Our Journey Westward

I love these series of books because you can use them for grades K – 8.

“The NaturExplorers series was written with 1st-8th graders in mind.

 All of the activities in the studies are very adaptable for all ages, though, and specific ideas are included for incorporating your older and younger students.”

Our Journey Westward
  • Learn to make jewelry. I did this when I was in middle school. Nowadays, any Hobby Lobby or craft store carries beginner supplies.
  • Learn to work with leather. Leather can be expensive, so start with those cheaper chamois wash cloths they sell at Walmart to dry your car with and make a pouch, shirt or choker from it. These fun leather crafts are a fun way to begin learning about working with leather.
  • Go to free concerts. We use to live close to a major college and they had free concerts outside with a variety of musicals from classical to modern that my boys enjoyed going to.

  • Try a new water sports like whitewater rafting. Certainly not for the faint of heart, but if you have a water lover he or she may enjoy taking lessons.
  • Check out you library summer reading program.

Summer Fun for Teens

  • Take up a summer job. Some jobs like a babysitter, dog walker and pet setting services just require a mature young person.
  • Make a lava lamp. Beckons me to my childhood.
  • Learn to sew. I sewed my first pillow in middle school. It’s a shame that skill didn’t stick with me until today.
  • Learn to Cook.
  • Take an online class. You’ll love this fun Poetry and a Movie. Click here for Online Homeschool High School Poetry (No Teaching Involved).
  • Interview a grandparent. This year we have had both sets of grandparents real ill. We are making a chart of questions that Tiny has been wondering about their life and when we return to the states, he will be interviewing them.
Middle School Kids Can Learn Photography @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus
  • Take an elective class for high school now. There is no need to wait until high school to take an elective they might be interested in. Too, by taking a class during the summer, they can take their time and it still goes on their high school transcript when they enter the high school years. Look at A to Z List: Middle and High School Homeschool Electives.
  • Learn photography. My niece took up some basic photography during her summer years. Most classes for beginners don’t require any fancy equipment in the beginning. It is a great way to see if a passion turns into a profession as they grow older.

Fun Learning Ideas for Summer

  • Art lessons for the art lover. Sometimes we just don’t have time to get it all in during the school year and taking up art during the summer keeps it fun instead of “school”.
  • Take up reenacting. My sister and her daughters would do history like this during the summer. Living history, hands down beats a dry textbook.
  • Head to the beach. I remember my summer times at the beach roasting corn and marshmallows. Nothing means summer more than spending a day and evening at the beach.

More Summer Homeschool Ideas

    Those ideas are just some of the things we have done and pop into my head.

    30 Summer Activities for Middle School Kids

    What about you? What are your favorite activities to do during summer time for middle school kids?

    You’ll love these other ideas:

    30 Summer Activities for Middle School Kids @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

    6 Ways to Organize Your Homeschooled High School Teen

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    This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

    Organization is not something we should just learn our self, but it’s a blessing we need to pass on to our homeschooled high school teen.

    6 Ways to Organize Your Homeschooled High School Teen @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus


    Look at these 6 ways to organize your homeschooled high school teen.

    1. Dedicated space.teen desk

    Source: PBteen

    There is nothing more important to helping your teen stay organized than having a place for “it all”.

    From the time they start learning to drive until the time they graduate, they have a mounting amount of things to take up their space.

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    Like you, they too need to know that when they put something away, somebody else will not move it.
    Having both a dedicated space to store their items and to study at will help them to learn to manage their space.

    2. Coloring is for High School.

    If you have a teen that loves to organize, then something that makes a young organizer get giddy is a not only a new set of high lighters, but a color coordinating system.

    I allow high lighting in books at any level if it will help my boys retain their information.
    Yes, I know the book won’t have any resale value, but I am foremost concerned with teaching my boys a method to study.
    They are all visual learners and so having an easy system for remembering new words and key points when studying is one I encourage.
    Finding answers to questions happens when the answer is highlighted or underlined.
    Too help them develop a code for each color.
    For example, we used green for new words, then reviewing material becomes a snap.

    3. Written or Digital Planner.

    Though I love techie things, I found that having a paper planner or just even a daily checklist if a planner sounds cumbersome to a teen was a better fit for us than a digital device.

    Student Planner 15 min increments editable 1
    Student Planner 15 min increments editable 2

    (2 Page View for the Student Planner – Tracking in 15 minute increments.)

    I managed my boys’ time on line and because being on the internet was something they could not do in private, we found it easier to manage their time through easy paper checklists.

    4. Subject Balance.

    Taking their notebooks, planners or checklists with them in their bedrooms gave my kids time to look over what they actually did versus what we planned.
    Like us, they can over plan.
    Learning to balance the time they spend on each subject is critical to keeping the flow to their day balance.
    High school is the time to learn to organize subjects differently.
    For example, like a lot of college or upper level subjects, they may tackle one or two subjects intensely and then move on to others.
    What matters is what is accomplished at the end of a semester or at the end of however your track a school term.
    Let them try different approaches to organizing the approach they take to school subjects while they live with you.
    That is the time to see whether a creative idea works or not.

    5. Paper Management.

    Mr. Senior 2013 came up with his own system of managing pages for assignments for the week.
    Actually, it was a perfect example of how our children will model our behavior if we put forth a bit of effort.
    He adopted a system I had used for years, which was pulling the pages out of a workbook or printing them off for the week from the internet and placing them in an organized bin.

    Homeschool High School Student Organization @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus


    One of the reasons I fell in love with this system was that it showed my kids what was expected each week and they could get started quickly without waiting on me to present their work to them for the day.
    Nowadays, they call it a workbox system, but I still love organized bins that hold weekly assignments.
    They are super compact if you are short on space and everybody can access them and see what is expected each week.

    6. Supplies Matter.

    Get your teen excited about an organized lifestyle by providing them with cool supplies.

    Whether you’re starting a new school year or want to get your teen excited about organizing, sleek and snazzy supplies can infuse a crush for organizing.
    One or two snazzy pieces to organize their supplies will give them a kick start to organizing.
    In a world that teaches that we constantly need more of everything to be happy, our teens will be faced with the same decisions about trying to keep their lives clutter free.
    Organize your homeschooled high school student now because organizing chaos never worked.
    Organization at the high school level is not only the beginning to successfully learning how to follow a workable schedule but to mastering the skills needed for savoring life.

    What about you? How do you organize your teen for high school?

    You will also love to read:

    Hugs and love ya,

    Signature T

    Homeschooled Teen Job Performance Evaluation Form

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    This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

    Homeschooled Teen Job Performance

    Today, I created a homeschooled teen job performance evaluation form.

    I don’t want to sound corny, but some of the best forms I love to create are ones that help you and me both. I got this email.

    I have a 16 year old who has her first job. We are utilizing this as a time management and financial portion of her homeschool. I have been unsuccessful in locating, for lack of better terminology, a questionnaire to have her employer fill out to let us know how well she preforms her job, interacts and demeanor while away from our nest. We know that she has had perfect attendance (she cannot drive yet) but still as her parents and little time to continue to influence her before the real world hits I was hoping that there would be  a template of sorts out there and I have yet to locate one. Would you be able to help?

    Evaluations by my employer were part of my grade too when I was in high school so I loved this idea.

    Teen’s First Job Performance

    Excited about sharing this next form with you, I jumped on this idea.

    Too, though it was REAL hard I restrained myself from using colors because I wanted it stay more professional looking or something that you could present to your teen’s employer.

    Teen Job Performance Evaluation Collage @ Tiina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

     Download form here.

    Thank you always for your suggestions as we build the 7 Step Homeschool Planner together and I hope when the time comes you can use this form. 

    I am just in love with it and with it being part of your teen’s final high school credit course.

    You’ll love these other teen helps:

    Hugs and love ya,

    Should I Let My Homeschooled Teen Graduate Early?

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    This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

    The question should I let my homeschooled teen graduate early crossed my mind a few years before high school.

    My oldest son was the kind of teen that never needed to be reminded of deadlines and pretty well knew that he wanted to do some missionary type of work after graduation and before he pursued a career.

    Too, even before taking his high school courses, he would work into the afternoon without my prodding him to do so. 

    In ninth grade, I could have noted the 8 credits he had because we schooled year around and because he didn’t mind working long hours on his curriculum.

    If he kept up that schedule and pace, he could easily have graduated in about 3 years depending on the number of high school credits I had planned.

    In other words, I just knew he was on the path to early graduation.  Do you know that my plan was for him to graduate early? 

    If you have been following me for a while, you know however, that our lives took a significant change when the Mr. had his heart attack during the 10th grade year of Mr. Senior 2013.

    Mr. Senior 2013 stepped up and helped me run our business while my husband recuperated and of course, my son’s schooling suffered.

    Instead of focusing on the sad time then though, I always like to focus on the good that came out of that for all of my boys. 

    Should I Let My Homeschooled Teen Graduate Early @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

    Though, Mr. Senior 2013 did not graduate early as planned, I realized that he didn’t mind at all because he learned more about our family owned business then he ever knew before.

    He has learned valuable skills in customer service because he was the one that had to go with our installation guys to our customer’s homes.

    I was very nervous, but like a lot of our mature homeschooling teens he was equal to the task.

    Though things don’t always happened as planned, I still see many positives for allowing a mature teen to graduate early.

    If a teen knows what they want to pursue, then they have extra time to pursue what interests them.

    There are many teens who are mature and already know that they want to pursue a career that requires minimal college time. 

    I knew one teen boy in our homeschool group that knew he was going to be a chef and wanted to start pursuing culinary classes.

    In his early high school years, he was hosting food parties in his home cooking for people.

    He had a true gift for the culinary arts and his parents recognized the need to allow him to pursue his dream.

    Many schools encourage a gap year and see the benefit of it.

    Does it really matter if your teen takes a “gap” year earlier? 

    Only you as the homeschool parent knows if your teen is mature enough to take a gap year and pursue what interests them.

    High achieving and mature teens are ready to get on with their life.

    Some teens are high achievers and are ready to get on with their life.

    On the flip side, homeschooling is about recognizing the different personalities of our teens and some want to be done with the “book learning” part of school so they can get on with doing activities they know will help them be independent adults.

    They may never be the bookish type of person but our teen may still be mature enough to have already decided what course he or she will pursue.

    Too, teens feel the same satisfaction that we do as adults when it comes to knowing that they can finish early if they have fulfilled the number of high school credits we require.

    If a teen is on the college track, then wouldn’t a year head start help him or her to add a internship to the mix, pursue some other goals or just get them ahead in college?

    Homeschooling highschoolers can be complicated, but you don’t have to worry about ALL the choices, just concentrate on what your teen needs.

    There is nothing wrong with a teen not being ready to finish high school earlier because teens all mature at different rates and there is no rush – really. 

    They only have one time in their life to be carefree, independent, yet totally needing your guidance.

    There are so many things that affect whether or not it’s beneficial for a homeschooled teen to graduate early, but in the end all that matters is the decision that allows your teen to pursue his or her chosen course when they are ready.

    What about you? Do you have a teen you feel may graduate early?

    Hugs and love ya,

     

    Check out these other posts to help with homeschooled high school teens:

    Homeschool High School Readiness?

    Homeschool High School How To Prepare THE Transcript

    Homeschoolers Who Want More Than College

    Homeschool High School–How to Log Hours for High School?

    Treasure the Moments of Homeschooling Testosterone Armed Teen Boys

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    This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

    I don’t want to sound cliché, but I treasure the moments of homeschooling testosterone armed teen boys. Thinking back when all the boys were real young, my sis came over to my house one day with her girls, which are about the same age as my boys. We were not only discussing how to homeschool boys, but also how we could join forces to homeschool our kids together.

    How to Easily Homeschool Boys

    When we looked up, my boys were outside in the yard with tree branches fighting and her girls were inside coloring pages, inside the lines no doubt.

    (Boys to …………..

    I didn’t speak out loud what I thought of her girls, but she did later about my boys.

    She discussed with me about putting my boys on medication and I silently thought she had beaten the life out of her girls to the point they had no personality or energy either one.

    I didn’t really speak out too because deep down I had a nagging fear that something might actually be wrong with my boys.

    We both had our first glimpse of the opposite gender of which neither one of us had any experience handling.  Fast forward many years later, I never put my boys on medication because I knew as the mom that they were boys.
    What does that mean? It means they learn differently than girls when they are young and it means more noticeable differences happen in the teen years.

    Much of my work in disciplining my sons did come when they were younger because I was trying to teach them to sit still when they really needed to wiggle.
    When my sis and I would meet together, I would be the one with my hands full as my time was spent beating my boys, mmmm, I meant settling fights and prodding the boys to complete their work.

    As my sons have morphed into the teen years, my work as mentor has not stopped.  It has required more finesse, patience and respect of the fact that they are born with an inward need to exercise authority even over me and a some lot of days that set my not so laid back personality in a frenzy.
    Because homeschooling is not just an adventure for my boys, but a journey in learning year by year for me too, I want to share a few things that worked and did not work for me as I homeschool teen boys.

    ……. Men)

    1).  Embrace the differences.  As my middle son, Mr. Awesome approaches completing his high school years, his relationship with me is different than Mr. Senior 2013.  Unlike Mr. Senior 2013, Mr. Awesome wants very clear cut guidelines as to what is expected of him in high school for each year.  So I changed the way I prepared his high school curriculum without giving up some of what his father and I required of him in high school.

    For example, with Mr. Senior 2013, we planned his high school together each year.  With Mr. Awesome, I planned for two years and he is taking an online school for the next two years.

    I still have some classes we do together like geography and some history, but he wanted an outside source.  I admit I was a bit disappointed, but then I have to remember that I have hopefully modeled the art of reasonableness and more importantly considered his needs and differences in high school.

    Some things have not been different than Mr. Senior 2013 like my middles son’s need to also question my decision making ability now.

    Mr. Senior 2013 and I had many head butting sessions, which only ended with me physically and mentally exhausted.  Having gone through the rooster syndrome with my oldest son, I was a bit more equipped this time with Mr. Awesome.

    Blessing and Challenges of Homeschooling Teen Boys

    Instead of taking his questioning my authority as a personal assault, I realized his need to start exercising his thinking ability to make good decisions.  If he does not start learning when and how to question decisions now, then how will he be able to make good decisions on his own and then to care for a family later?

    Understanding this has helped me a bit more to have patience when I am questioned about every school subject.  It is on the job training for the preparation of the challenges of manhood.

    2.) Figure Head of Male Authority a Need.  I sympathize with those single moms, but even they can provide a positive male role model.  It may be their father, uncle or other close friend or family member.  Men just have an unspoken word among themselves when it comes to male bonding time.

    It is not that a single mom cannot homeschool a testosterone packing teen, but it sure makes her job easier to have a male figure to turn to.

    In all my worry, both of my sons lapped up the influence by my husband and his time as he models the kind of men I want my sons to become.

    Too, my husband is able to help my sons to accept the fact that as mom, they need to learn how to accept my authority.

    Applying this to homeschooling has not always been easy, but I try to do my part in always listening to what each of my sons have to say no matter how trivial it may seem.

    Admitting that I too make mistakes and want them to learn to make capable decisions independent of a woman (though always listening to sound advice by either a man or woman) has always been a good stepping stone to them completing assignments or subjects that my husband and I have planned for them.

    This goes back to appreciating the fact that they are a different gender and their need to exercise domination and independence is such an intrinsic part of homeschooling each day.

    It is hard to separate the parenting from homeschooling during the teen years.

    3.) Create A World Separate From Yours.  Again I noticed the slight differences between my teen boys when it comes to having other teen friends and have had to adjust to their needs.  Mr. Senior 2013 was more content with just a few friends though he still needed a sphere of friends outside of our family.

    Mr. Awesome on the other hand has a stronger need for more socialization with teens.  He has a more-the-merrier attitude when it comes to other teens and even other people.

    Creating opportunities for both my sons to interact with both teen boys and girls has been some of the hardest work on my part beyond academics.

    Our homeschool co-op, church activities, fun sports and group field trips just for teens have been some of my best life saving tips to fill my boys need for the right kind of association.

    Coming up in more articles about how to homeschool teen boys, I will be sharing specific curriculum that clicked better for us and more specifics as to how boys learn.

    Your turn. Have you hit a brick wall when homeschooling your tween or teen boy?  What tips work for you?

    Hugs and love ya,

    Want to brush up on some more tips for homeschooling teens?

    Guiding Older Children

    Homeschooling Middle School Doesn’t Always Mean Middle Way

    Homeschool Writing Program for Middle and High School

    Homeschool High School Readiness?