Easy Summer Outdoor Activities For Toddlers

Toddlers are very easy to entertain with summer outdoor activities. With these activities, your toddlers will likely play for hours.

Our family spends a lot of time outside, when the kids aren’t napping (or when they are as babies they just nap wherever we are) you will likely find us outside.

When the weather is nice the chores inside get put on hold and we spend the day outside, in the garden, on walks, working on a project, or just doing nothing.

When I do have to work in the kitchen doing dishes, cooking, canning, etc. the kids will normally still play right outside of the kitchen. Our kitchen is set up conveniently, allowing the kids to play outside while I’m working and I can still supervise them closely.

We spend all this time outside and you might be surprised to know that we don’t have a lot of outdoor toys or anything elaborate at all, and our kids will play outside for hours.

So what do they do outside?

There are typically three activities the kids will do while outside.

Buckets And Water

Water is the favorite activity of choice around here. Give the kids a couple of buckets of water and a couple of small toys, containers, shovels, etc. and they will have a blast.

You can change it up every once in a while by giving them the hose to play with or fill a small pool with water for them. Or on a hot day you could add a bunch of ice cubes for something else fun, and to cool the water off.

Playing in water is educational as well. Learning which items will sink or float, dumping and pouring water, and learning how to control the flow of water and its direction are all things they are learning while playing in the water.

Just remember to always supervise young children around water at all times.

Pile Of Dirt

Kids love dirt. You won’t find many kids who don’t love playing and digging in a pile of dirt. Dirt definitely makes the list of perfect easy summer outdoor activities.

We have a pile of dirt right out front of our house and it provides hours of entertainment when the weather is nice.

Add a few small shovels, rakes, buckets, and maybe a few trucks if you have them, and the kids will likely be entertained for a long time.

Playing in the dirt after it rains can be a lot of fun as well. There are a lot more options of things to do when all the holes are full of water and the dirt is wet. You can make mudpies and build small walls and buildings with wet dirt.

Painting With Water

If you like simple summer activities that don’t make a big mess then this one is for you. Painting with water is easy to set up and there is no mess when they are done (unless they dump the bucket of water on them that is).

For this activity, you will want a small bucket or pail of water and a paintbrush. Then find a surface that water will show up on and let them have fun!

Pretty much any wood, stone, or brick surface will work, it doesn’t even have to be a big surface, because if it is warm the water will dry pretty fast and they will be able to paint on it again.

Sticks And Stones

I know, sticks and stones are super old-fashioned toys, but they can provide hours of entertainment and are wonderful toys.

How do you play with sticks and stones? You use your imagination. Sticks can very easily be people or animals, and rocks can be cars, houses, or pretty much anything you want them to be. You can also build structures with both sticks and stones.

You don’t even have to do that though, young children often like just feeling rocks and playing with them. Running gravel through their fingers or covering their feet with it is a lot of fun. You can also draw or write in gravel with sticks.

This activity might not be for everybody, but throwing rocks is a lot of fun and educational as well. It is important if you let your toddlers throw rocks to talk about when/where it is okay to throw rocks and where/when it isn’t.

When they are throwing rocks they notice how rocks with different weights fly through the air differently and fall at different speeds. They also notice the different sounds they make when they hit the water or the ground.

Sticks and stones provide a lot of fun outside. Throwing stones into puddles and drawing in gravel or dirt with sticks are two fun summer outdoor activities with sticks and stones that can provide a lot of entertainment.

Easy Summer Outdoor Activities

These are my favorite easy summer outdoor activities that can be done without lots of big expensive toys. The same buckets and shovels can be used for playing in both the water and dirt.

And yes, most of these activities are messy, but the kids really enjoy them, and kids and clothes wash pretty easily. In the summer we normally keep two outfits out for each child and when one gets really wet or dirty it gets hung on the line to dry or get the dirt blown off of it. Sometimes they get switched multiple times a day, but that’s a price I’m willing to pay because they really love playing in the outdoors.