Now that the dog days of summer are here and the initial excitement of being on summer vacation has worn off, are you having trouble thinking of ways to keep your kids occupied and the good times rolling? Here are a few free or low-cost ideas to keep everyone active, engaged and enjoying their time off school.

Explore a different neighbourhood
You don’t need to spend hundreds of dollars on plane tickets or road trips to get a taste of something new. Sometimes, all you need is a new perspective on a familiar place – go to a different grocery store than usual, try out a new-to-you playground, a different library branch or switch up your usual means of transportation – take a bus or ferry instead of the car, or ride your bikes instead of walking.

If you take a daily walk, bike ride or scooter adventure with the kids, try making a game of choosing the route for your walk: flip a coin or roll dice at every intersection to determine whether you’ll turn or go straight. (If that’s not enough to keep everyone interested, here are some more games to play while walking.)

Take advantage of your parks and rec department
When you think about summer at your local parks and recreation department, you might think about splash pads, swimming lessons or day camps – but they offer so much more! Depending on where you live, your local parks and rec department can help you access all sorts of free or low-cost activities and materials that will keep your kids entertained outside.

For example, people in Halifax Regional Municipality can enjoy free roller skate, scooter and bike loans at the Halifax Emera Oval, or they can cross the bridge to play a round of disc golf on Dartmouth Common. (Don’t have the right kind of Frisbee? Borrow a disc golf set from the nearby Findlay Centre, for free.)

Not in HRM? No problem! Search for your community’s name plus “parks and recreation” to find a list of options available in your area. And hey – never underestimate how much fun kids can have in a backyard with a pile of logs, old tires and leftover building materials. Risky play is important, too!

Get cooking
Summer is a great time to help kids build their food-prep skills – especially because hot-weather meals often don’t involve the stove. This is the perfect time of year to teach little ones how to mix up a , prepare popsicles, build a snack plate or make a salad. All the better if you can combine your culinary adventures with a trip to !

Make something fun
There’s a reason that crafts are a summer camp classic – after a long day of playing at the park in the hot sun, there’s nothing more relaxing than collapsing onto a comfy chair next to a fan with a cool drink and spending some time making a friendship bracelet, doing a simple weaving project or making a potholder. Not into fibre crafts? Paper airplanes and origami are also fun ways for kids to build dexterity and develop their problem-solving skills.

Leave a secret message
Is there any better time of year to learn about invisible ink, codes and other ways of passing secret messages? You might not want to go into full spy-camp mode, but a little bit of lemon juice can go a long way if you’re looking to add some fun to a sunny afternoon. Here are six ways to use common household ingredients to pass secret messages – just be careful, some use heat to reveal the message, so they will require parental supervision.

If you want to be a bit less subtle about your secret message adventures, consider decorating rocks to leave along a local trail, or take your next walk or hike to a new level by trying out geocaching.

A change is as good as a rest
These activities do more than just get you to step outside your normal routine – they also help your kids develop their physical abilities, learn new skills, and enhance their connection to and knowledge of where they live. If you stop to chat with neighbours while you explore this summer, you’ll be building community, too – something that feels good no matter the time of year.

Want more information on healthy living and health-care delivery sent directly to your inbox? Subscribe to our newsletter to get all our content first!