Summer activities for kids

Why ready-made printables work during summer

The most common reason a vacation activity fails is logistics: you needed supplies you didn't have, or the activity required preparation you didn't get done before traveling. Printables solve this because everything you need is on one A4 sheet — just a pen or pencil. You can print at home before you leave, or order delivery to your mailbox via Send.no if you're traveling far.

Summer also has several different modes: the car ride between cabin and grandparents, rainy days indoors, evening wind-down when everyone is tired, and afternoons when kids need something calm before dinner. Each of these suits different printable types. The boards below are sorted by when in the summer they work best.

Top 7 summer activities that actually work

• Car bingo with summer motifs (cows, tractors, sea, gas station) — works from age 4 and keeps them busy for 30–60 minutes per sheet.
• Summer bingo for the cabin — outdoor version with mountains, berries, boats, animal tracks. Great for evening walks.
• Treasure hunts for kids with clues you can adapt to your yard or cabin area in 10 minutes.
• Rebus and riddles for evening time — short, no equipment needed, perfect before bedtime.
• Connect-the-dots for the youngest — builds confidence without screens.
• Holiday quiz about the country you're visiting — educational without feeling like school.
• Activity booklets for long trips — multiple different tasks in the same booklet, a child can work through an entire booklet on a car or train ride.

How to choose by age

Ages 3–5: connect-the-dots with few dots, large coloring motifs, and picture bingo (no text).

Ages 6–8: simple quizzes, summer bingo with words, short rebus, and treasure hunts with drawn clues.

Ages 9–12: more challenging quizzes, long rebus sequences, and car bingo with categories requiring observation over time.

Siblings together: make the same activity in two difficulty levels. Oldest gets the quiz version, youngest gets the picture bingo — same theme, same time, no fighting over who leads.

How to use Activity Workshop for summer

Choose one of the activity types below, set the theme and age, and generate one ready A4 sheet. You can print at home on a regular printer, or let us send it physically via Send.no if you're traveling far or don't have a printer at the cabin.

You don't need an account. Everything is free to create and download. If you want to save your favorite setups for next year, you can create a family and store preferred configurations — then you skip setup before each trip.

Rainy days and car rides — two special scenarios

Rainy days: combine one calm activity (connect-the-dots, coloring, rebus) with one more active (indoor treasure hunt where clues lead around the house). Switch after 30–45 minutes. We have separate pages for rainy day activities and home activities with kids with more ideas.

Car rides over two hours: print two different sheets per child before you leave. Car bingo first (the first 45 minutes), then a break, then activity booklet. Hand towels, pencils, and a hard surface (a clipboard or a book) behind the passenger seat make writing possible in the car.

Download free — no account needed

All printables in Activity Workshop are free. You don't need to register to print. If you want delivery in the mail, we cover postage for families on Zenframe; otherwise, you pay self-cost via Send.no.