In this episode, Tiffiny shares the Top 10 List of Summer Activities to foster physical activity, engagement, and learning throughout the summer in a fun and entertaining way.
Click on the Top 10 List of Summer Activities Guide to learn more about the topics and community providers included in this episode.
We hope you have a fantastic summer!
Thank you for listening to the Sage Studio podcast presented by Sage Oak Charter Schools and hosted by Tiffiny Webster, M.A.Ed. We invite you to follow the show and leave your review below. Sage Oak Charter Schools is an independent study nonclassroom based TK-12 personalized learning public charter school serving students in Southern California. Visit sageoak.education for more information.
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In this episode, Tiffiny shares the Top 10 List of Summer Activities to foster physical activity, engagement, and learning throughout the summer in a fun and entertaining way.
Click on the Top 10 List of Summer Activities Guide to learn more about the topics and community providers included in this episode.
We hope you have a fantastic summer!
Thank you for listening to the Sage Studio podcast presented by Sage Oak Charter Schools and hosted by Tiffiny Webster, M.A.Ed. We invite you to follow the show and leave your review below. Sage Oak Charter Schools is an independent study nonclassroom based TK-12 personalized learning public charter school serving students in Southern California. Visit sageoak.education for more information.
Sage Oak Website
Instagram
Facebook
YouTube
Welcome to another episode of Sage Studio. I'm Tiffiny Webster, and today we are talking all about summer activities. Now I know summer kind of starts to draw pictures of lazy days sleeping in no set agenda. But we also know that only lasts so long before the kids are wondering, what are we doing today? Where are we going? And what activities do you have planned? So don't worry, I've got you covered. I took a little walkthrough, some of our community providers, some of the places we visited this year on field trips, and I came up with a great top 10 list of different ideas and activities for you to do this summer. All right, let's go ahead and take a look. All right, so here is our top 10 list of summer activities for kids and families. Number one, you might want to think about a summer camp. Now, summer camps are kind of the quintessential summer activity, but they're really fun and students can learn a wide range of activities, from hiking and archery, maybe even swimming. Students can make new friends, they can visit new places. There is a structured environment, so that's always really helpful. They can engage in some personal growth, you know, pushing through some challenges, trying things that they never had tried before or learning new things about themselves and what it's like to maybe be on their own and be independent for the first time. They can also learn some of those new skills, things that they never thought that they would do, like pick up a badminton racket. Many of our local summer camps here can be in the mountains. They can be at the beach. They can also be just right within your local communities. So lots of fun activities to be had at a summer camp. Here's an example of a guide of the camps that are in Ventura County. So by clicking on the link that I have here for you on this presentation that will take you to a huge list of all different types of camps. Now if you do not live in Ventura, you may just want to do a Google search for your county, or start here just to get the wheels turning at the different types of camps that are offered. Anything from, you know, surf camps, to theater camps, to zoo camps. And there's a huge list here. So go ahead and take a look and get the idea of a camp that might work for you. Alright. Then another option could be outdoor adventure programs. Now, these are a little bit different than the typical summer camps. The outdoor adventure programs are specifically for outdoor skills. So in these camps, students are really connecting with nature. They're learning an outdoor skill, they're working with others. Maybe there's a physical fitness component. I'm thinking like obstacle courses and rope courses and rock climbing. Or maybe they're learning a new skill like how to sail. Or it could be as simple as being in a garden, spending time in a community garden or at some of the gardening centers that are in your area. It's a great way for students to connect with nature. They literally get to sow the seed and see the fruits of their labor develop over the course of the program. So gardening camps are something that you may want to consider. One of our community providers is Sprout and Blossom. Sprout And Blossom is offering a wide range of camps this summer, including gardening camps, farming camps, lots of different options. Great idea for families. Next we have science centers and museums. These are those places that you feel like you never have enough time to explore. When you're on a field trip, maybe you only get to see one section or you're on one specific tour. So summer is the perfect time to really spend a lot of time at these museums and science centers. They're always so engaging and educational. A lot of'em will have really great hands on exhibits that the kids can get involved in and interactive displays. And I think really one of the coolest thing about it is some of the roving or limited time exhibits that they have, they seem to always bring out the good stuff during summer. So you can really look for science centers and museums in your local area. Towns and cities have different science centers and museums, or if you want something on a larger scale, you can go to something within your county. This is another great reason to travel to another county as well. Maybe you live in San Diego and you want to go check out what's up in LA or maybe you live in LA and want to go see what's down in Orange County. So this is the really great time to take the drive to go explore something that you and your family are really interested in. I know that our kids did a field trip to the San Diego Fleet Science Center this year. That was an incredible field trip, and they offer all different types of exhibits. They have a lot of really great films that they show that are really educational and interesting. And then of course there's lots of different events and little sections for everyone to explore. So I would definitely check out the Fleet Science Center if that is something that you are interested in. All right, going on to number four, which is art classes and workshops. Summer is a perfect time to really explore your inner artists or tap into that creative energy. I mean, I just don't think. Anything else says summertime like arts and crafts, right? So it's a perfect time for them to do this. They can make a lot of new friends while they are developing their artistic skills, and there are so many types of art techniques and skills to explore. Students can learn all about painting, they can learn all about using clay. They can learn about creating sculptures. They can really have these wonderful hands-on experiences and art classes are pretty easy to come by. That's a good thing about them as well. You can really find them just locally in your town or city, or again, if you wanted to explore a little bit wider within your county, you'll find a lot of different art classes. There are even some great online art classes if you're looking for something that you can do at home. One of our community providers, beautifully made atelier that is an art studio that offers both outdoor education as well as art instruction. And they have some fun summer camps going on. So you could check out their summer camps and see if there was something that would fit for your kids. But again, an art camp or an art class. Great activity for this summer. Another fun idea would be sports and recreation. Our kids love playing in the summertime. So why not check out a couple sports camps? They can learn some physical fitness kids can work on an individual skill, maybe like golf or tennis, or they could work on a team sport like basketball, soccer, volleyball, lot of fun camps going on right now. This really helps students to build sportsmanships as well as sports techniques, hand-eye coordination. Many of these techniques that kind of transfer from one sport to another, or even from their sports over to their academics. Come the fall again, so it's great time to get out there and have a little fun. Students also learn the importance of being coachable and working with other adults and other coaches and leaders that can really provide them some great instruction, and it's just a fun time to interact with others. And parents. It's a fun time to interact with other parents as well. There's a lot of opportunities to meet other families that are also on the sidelines during these practices or during these camps. So a great way for the family really to get out there. And a lot of times these sports camps are multi-age, so that can be really beneficial too. So if you have kids that are maybe, you know, between the ages of 7 and 10. A lot of times the sports in the summertime are multi-age and so, oftentimes you can have siblings that are in the same camps together, which is a lot of fun. Check out one of our community providers, love set match tennis. They offer a great website here with a lot of information about how students can participate in tennis classes, which are a lot of fun. And then if you wanted to just look for your local. City or community offerings, oftentimes they will mail out a brochure to you or you can go to your local city's website and you can find out all of the different recreational opportunities that they have going on for summer camps. So a lot of fun there as far as getting some sports and some recreation in, into your summer season. All right. Number six is music lessons. This summer can be a great time to work on some music lessons. Students have a chance to pick up a new instrument that maybe they hadn't played before. Students can explore just their different interests or curiosities about music develop their music abilities, enhance their creativity. Students who have maybe never tried playing the drums or never tried playing the ukulele and they've always wanted to, this gives'em a little bit of that time and space to learn something new. Singing and working independently or in a duo or in a band. This can be a really fun way to interact with some other kids. You may want to check out Max Lee Music. They're one of our sage o community providers and they are having a summer rock series that kids can participate in as well. So if you head on over to Max Lee Music. You will find a lot of information here about contacting them about their summer rock series. Number seven is volunteer and community service. This is a great way for students to participate in their local community and get involved in a cause that they care about. Students can help the community or volunteer in a wide variety of ways. That helps'em to develop empathy and care helps'em to be responsible and accountable if they sign up to participate at a certain day and time. You know, holding themselves to follow through can be really important. They learn how to give back and again, to support that cause and take action in a meaningful way. Students can work with shelters, students can work with food pantries. They can be involved in beach cleanups or helping out with our parks and rec. Those places always need volunteers to support their causes. Guide Dogs of America is an organization that we worked with a little bit this year and they offer some great training of guide dogs. And this can be really beneficial not only to the service that you are supporting, but it's also really beneficial to student development. They really get a chance to be part of a community and contribute in a way that is really empowering for them and can be very impactful. Number eight is visiting your public library. Now, this is kinda the one that we always think of as well when we think of indoor activities for the summer. And you know what? It's just a good staple. The public library offers so many great reading programs over the summer, and summer is a perfect time for students to really dive into books and be curious about different genres or types of books that they don't normally read, and they also have the time to discuss them at a deeper level by joining a book club or by joining a reading challenge, right? All of these things are happening and you can participate in them through your local libraries. Here's a link to the Orange County Library. Sometimes looking at the county level gives you an overview of what is happening at multiple libraries in your area so that you can find the activities that are best suited to your kids and to your families. And I would highly suggest going on and checking out the different age range of activities as well, so that you can find the ones that are just perfect for you. And number nine is to check out a coding technology or gaming class. There's a lot of different boot camps, challenges day camps. Week long camps happening with a lot of coding, technology and gaming, this is a great time for your kids to really learn a new skill, learn something that can really help them better understand computer programming while having a lot of fun too. Students love to put robots together and figure out how they work and how they can make them move in different ways. And it really helps to build their critical thinking as well as their communication skills, because they're oftentimes working with a partner or in small groups. Chess clubs are another thing that kids love to do, and summer is a perfect time for them to attribute a lot of time to learning this new skill. Graphic design is another one kids love to learn. They love to learn how to create different types of images and use the tools for adding different colors or shading and creating all different types of designs. There are often graphic design businesses that will be running graphic design camps for kids during the summer or different stores, like even the Apple Store, has different technology camps that kids can participate in over the summer. So be sure to check out your local businesses, your local stores anything online that your kids might be interested in as well, such as code.org. code.org is a great website that has a ton of lessons that your students can follow to really learn some great skills. I've added a link to code.org for you here so that you can check out all the different resources that they have available. If you go to this top tab where it says learn, you can see all of the different classes that they have for kids at all different ages, at all different levels. So a lot to explore on this website for kids to start to learn those coding skills in a way that's really easy and doable for them. And last but not least is number 10, and that is leadership and skills courses. This is a great opportunity for students to really build a skill, especially the older students. Maybe this is a time for them to learn something like c p r or take a lifeguarding course or maybe to earn a certification. These opportunities really provide a lot of teamwork and leadership skills for students to learn as well as a life skill. Plus they get to make new friends and they could discover something that they're really passionate about. Again, you can look for these types of camps at your local community level. I Fly is a fun organization. They have several locations in Ontario and San Diego and throughout Southern California. But I Fly is an indoor skydiving business and they offer flight school for kids ages four to 16 at I Fly, which is really fun. So kids can learn to fly like a superhero while they're also learning leadership skills, teamwork, sportsmanship. All of those different things. Another option for students would be to visit the Junior Lifeguards website. The junior lifeguards website shows all of the different locations across California where students can participate in junior lifeguard programs. So there's lots of beaches up and down the coast of California where students can learn these skills and participate in a junior lifeguard program. So again, something to consider might be those leadership and skill camps. All right, so there you go. There is your top 10 list of summer activities for you and the kids to participate in the summer.
You can download a copy of today's presentation using the link below in the show notes.
Tiffiny:We hope your summer is jam packed with fun and we can't wait to see you back in the phone. Have a great summer everyone.