Summer Activities for High-School Students

Book or Comic Book – Encourage your gifted writers and graphic artists to consider writing a book or comic book this summer.  It can be a children’s book, one for kids their age, a comic book with characters they create, or whatever they imagine.  Then have your kids research ways to publish the book either for personal use or to share with others.

Family History Projects – Summer is a good time for kids to connect with relatives to learn more about family history.  They can interview family members via Zoom or Google Hangouts, record the interviews, and then share with other family members.  They can collect photographs to create a family calendar, which would be an awesome Christmas gift.  They can write a book about family history so that it can be passed down to future generations.  They can even host a virtual family reunion and schedule time to share family history.  The possibilities for this are many.

Summer Book Club – Encourage your kids to start a summer book club with their friends or family members, giving them an opportunity to select parent-approved books that appeal to their interests.  Have them set up a reading schedule and periodic discussions over Zoom or Google Hangouts.  Besides the obvious value of reading, this activity will also help kids practice leadership skills, in addition to giving them an excuse to connect with friends throughout the summer.

Vocabulary – Summer is a good time for students to learn new vocabulary, but it’s probably not the most exciting-sounding activity to pack into a summer.  One way to spice it up a bit is to choose magazines on topics of interest to your kids – sports, fashion & design, engineering, cars, etc.  Read an article first and underline the vocabulary words you think your kids do not know.  Then have them read the article and try to figure out the meaning of the word in the context of the article.  They can look it up to see how close they were to the actual definition, and then you can ask them to write a sentence with the word on whatever topic interests them.  For high school students, you’ll want to choose magazines with challenging articles.  Examples include Sports Illustrated, O Magazine, Popular Mechanics, Vogue, Car and Driver, and National Geographic. 

Careers in Media Technology – Stanford University

Introduction to Computer Science - Harvard University

How Things Work: An Introduction to Physics - University of Virginia

Introduction to Thermodynamics: Transferring Energy from Here to There - University of Michigan

Kahn Academy (This site includes a variety of courses from which to choose.)

App Inventor - MIT

Model Car/Aircraft/Ship Project – For students who are interested in mechanical engineering, assembling a model car is one way for them to become familiar with the parts and mechanisms that make vehicles work.  This activity can be coupled with reading articles in magazines like Popular Mechanics (www.popularmechanics.com).  You can purchase model kits online, at hobby stores, or big-box discount stores.  There are model kits for beginners and those with more experience, and the age-appropriateness is usually suggested on the box.  As an added bonus, some kits require painting, so kids can combine their interest in engineering with their interest in art.  Kids also enjoy the process of choosing the make or models of their vehicles.

Building Projects – If you need a new dresser, storage, or other piece of furniture, why not ask your kids to do it?!  There are numerous DIY websites with projects for beginners all the way to seasoned builders.  Tell them what you want and get them to research it online.  Then ask them to prepare a list of materials and a budget for the project.  If you don’t have a garage full of tools, you may want to choose more basic projects that require the bare minimum.  If you’ve never built anything before – ever! – then this might be a great opportunity to learn along with your kids.

Gardening – Many kids associate food with the grocery store and have never stopped to think about how the food comes to be.  Although it is more convenient to get vegetables and fruit from the grocery store, there’s nothing fresher or tastier than home-grown food.  Whether it’s growing an herb garden in the kitchen or actually planting vegetables outdoors, gardening provides opportunities for families to bond while learning how to live off the land.  It also gives kids an opportunity to realize the satisfaction of working hard on something and seeing it pay off deliciously!  There are numerous resources online to help you get started.

Summer Business – Have your kids brainstorm ideas for developing a summer business.  Whether it’s doing yard work, designing t-shirts that can be sold online, selling foods grown in your garden, designing and selling face masks, etc., this is a good way for them to identify their strengths and figure out how they can use their talents to enhance other people’s lives or help solve their problems.