Sports/Games/Activities

• Encourage them to play on a baseball or softball team
• Have them join a soccer team
• Make one day a week "Adventure Day" and explore someplace you haven’t been
• Register them for a scuba class
• Arrange for a game of "Capture the Flag"
• Organize a water balloon fight
• Enroll them in a street hockey league
• Coordinate a scavenger hunt
• Take them to the driving range to hit golf balls and improve their swing
• Install a basketball hoop in your driveway, and then play with them
• Participate in nature walks together
• Visit state parks and take guided hikes
• Get season passes to the local minor league baseball team
• Take them camping, even if it is only in the backyard
• Establish an annual family mini-golf tournament
• Get a season pass to a nearby amusement park
• Help them build a soap-box car and then hold a derby
• Sign them up to be officials in kiddie sports leagues
• Organize a neighborhood Olympics
• Play flashlight tag on a warm night
• Build a skateboard park for kids
• Have them join the swim team
• Urge them to take lifeguard training
• Take them horseback riding
• Hold a monthly swimming and pizza day
• Take them bowling
• Send them to cheerleading camp
• Teach them to fish
• Schedule family game nights
• Have kids take turns picking videos for a family “movie night” at home.
• Go birdwatching
• Go to a fish store to see different varieties
• Have them write and put on a play
• Make kids responsible for grooming family pets
• Have the kids plan dinner menus
• Attend State and County fairs

Volunteerism

• Enroll them in Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts
• Clean Up the Neighborhood
• Urge them to help an older neighbor by taking out trash, grocery shopping, etc
• Urge them to set-up or reorganize the library at your local place of worship
• Volunteer with them at a soup kitchen
• Encourage them to volunteer at a hospital
• Encourage them to read to patients at a local nursing home
• Help them to set up a recycling program in your neighborhood
• Help them coordinate a "School Clean-Up"
• Paint old school buildings together
• Have them care for animals at the local SPCA
• Sign up the family to build houses with Habitat for Humanity
• Encourage them to write a letter to their Member of Congress

Etrepreneurship

• Have them volunteer their babysitting services to friends and relatives
• Encourage them to become the neighborhood dog walker
• Employ them around the house -- give them fix-it or clean up projects
• Help them start a neighborhood newspaper - reporting on the latest!
• Give them weekly errands like shopping or getting the mail
• Have them hold a car wash for the neighborhood
• Set up a lemonade stand
• Encourage them to hold a "fun fair" for younger kids
• Give them a list of daily chores
• Hold a multi-family garage sale
• If possible, bring them to your office a few days a week to help out
• Have them research a major family purchase
• Help them start a pet sitting service while people are on vacation
• Help them start a business teaching older people how to use the computer

Education/Classes

• Teach them astronomy and star gaze together
• Inspire them to design their dream house
• Send them to church sponsored activities
• Give them space for a garden and teach them to grow vegetables or flowers
• Enroll them in a CPR training class
• Check out books from the library each week
• Help them start a global e-mail club
• Take them to zoos and museums
• Teach them to identify plants and trees in the area
• Have them learn to play a musical instrument
• Urge them to conduct a family history search on the Internet or at the library
• Tell them to do a land survey of the 10-square blocks around your house
• Start a book club with your kids
• Have them read an article in the “opinion” section of the newspaper and ask their views
• Conduct science experiments
• Take a cooking class together
• Encourage them to "play" the stock market and monitor their investments
• Have them learn about the customs of other cultures

Crafts

• Start a neighborhood art group
• Give them the camcorder, and let them make their own home movie
• Teach them to do bark rubbings
• Build, and maintain, a birdfeeder
• Give them the supplies to create their own personalized stationery
• Set up a craft room for tye-dying tee shirts
• Show them how to create their own postcards
• Encourage them to write a song, and then let them record it
• Build a treehouse together
• Have them decorate pots and plant seedlings as gifts for the elderly
• Have them take pictures of their favorite summer moments and make a scrap book
• Teach them to knit or crochet

Other Ideas...

• Send them to their grandparents for a change of scenery
• Take them strawberry picking at a local farm and then feast on the fruit
• Make homemade ice cream together
• Organize a pet show
• Coordinate a weekly Family Film Festival
• Organize a neighborhood block party
• Create, and tend to, an ant farm together
• Create an "award" for summer achievements