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Educational Games and Activities for Summer Break 2023

Our school year has ended and the kids (and hopefully you too!) are enjoying a well earned summer break. I love making summer feel special, whether its with impromptu trips to the ice cream shop or a fun new book that arrives on the doorstep to read.

I’m sharing a few of my favorite games and activities perfect for providing a little extra summer fun for your family. Added bonus: these will keep their minds engaged and provide educational value too!

As a busy mom, I want you to know that I believe summer can be special with or without planned activities. All kids need is time with us. I don’t plan an activity every day or anything that’s overly involved. I am a firm believer that boredom is good for kids to find their creativity. You won’t find me running summer like a camp counselor. I just try to have a couple tricks up my sleeve to provide a few fun activities that foster independence, learning, and hopefully make for fun memories as well.

This is the third installment in this series. For even more fun educational games and activities for summer break, be sure to check those out as well! Post One | Post Two

Graphic Novel Adventures

For a unique spin on your summer reading goals, we recommend the Graphic Novel Adventure series. Our kids have been reading/playing through The Crusoe Crew. The cool thing about this GNA is that its designed for 1-4 players. Each player will have their own book that is for a specific character in the story. Everyone will work together, using their character’s special powers, to solve riddles and make choices about where to go and what to do next. It’s kind of like a clever choose your own adventure option with a little bit of a role playing game added into the mix!

Other Graphic Novel Adventures:

Cali & Kiki (designed for reading levels of grades 1 & 2)
Hocus & Pocus: The Legend of Grimm’s Woods
Hocus & Pocus: The Search for the Missing Dwarves
Your Theme Park (good for tweens and teens)

Escape This Book Series

This is a cute series where you will interact with the pages — doodling, cutting, folding, etc — to make decisions and attempt to escape the book. Along the way you’ll learn about history!

These are great for kids ages 8 to 12 and there are three in the series:

Titanic, Tombs of Egypt, Race to the Moon

The Adventures of Robin Hood

Summer is a great time to work through a family campaign game! We have been loving our current campaign through The Adventures of Robin Hood. I love how it combines an immersive story perfectly with the game play. This is also a great option for your kids to play through together if mom and dad are unable to join in — it makes for fun sibling memories. Highly recommend.

Blank Slate

This party game is perfect for those chill summer days! I love how it helps kids build vocabulary and word association while being perfect for a wide variety of ages to play together.

Linkto

This is a fun little cooperative trivia game where you’ll answer questions to match up cards. If you match them correctly, you’ll be left with one card that matches the key for the round. Then you can play again with the next difficulty level.

We’ve played the Food and Travel versions and found them both so fun for a light, quick game.

In the Footsteps of Darwin

One of my new favorites! This a great family drafting game that’s quick to learn with a fun educational element to it. The rulebook is filled with the history of Charles Darwin and the different elements included in the game. Reading through it will give players a greater appreciation for what they’ll be doing in the game. Pair it with a library book on Charles Darwin and you’ve got a fun educational pairing!

Earth

For your teens, we recommend Earth. This game is lovely to play and will have players crunching alllllll the numbers. Each card is unique in the game and you’ll find yourself looking at a ton of them and having to make decisions about which ones you should play. Every decision feels crucial and and you’ll be mentally adding and recalculating every choice available to you. Earth can also be played solo.

Turing Machine

For your teens that love deduction, Turing machine is one that will keep them busy all summer long! You are trying to deduce the secret code as quickly as possible using as few turns as you can. Turing machine is cleverly designed to give players more than seven million problems to work through. Play it solo, competitively, or cooperatively — it’s up to you!

Set up a Miniature Painting Studio

If you have any games with miniature figures in them, the summer is a great time to put on your painting apron and get creative! You don’t have to be an expert painter either — check out this post for the beginner painting supplies we use to paint our miniatures with our kids!

Science Kits

We love the National Geographic science kits for a fun and educational afternoon. We’ve tried a few over the years and have loved each! Some are more involved than others so you can choose what works best for your desired level of involvement and your kids’ interest.

Mega Fossil Dig Kit (We’ve done almost every fossil dig kit available; they’ve loved them all.)
Earth Science Kit (Volcanoes are always fun)
Science Magic Kit (Our son loved this one; it has a good mix of easy and more involved activities)
Flower Garden (love this one for younger kids!)
Rock Tumbler Kit (Been eyeing this one for our older kids)

Puzzles

Puzzles that are large enough to provide a challenge but small enough to be put together in a manageable amount of time are the sweet spot in our house. Our kids love putting their favorite puzzles together again and again.

A-Z of Cats has been a smash hit with all our kids, especially our 4-7 year olds! The art is beautiful and the kids love the shape the puzzle is in as well as picking out their favorite cat once the puzzle is put together.

I love these floor puzzles for a more laid back activity kids can enjoy together. I love that they’re also a seek and find so it’s like two activities in one. These have been a favorite of mine for the morning to quietly entertain the kids while everyone is getting ready to for the day.

I also love the art in this seek and find puzzle series.