The library is one of our go-to places throughout the summer. Partly because of the air conditioning. 🙂
They have tons of stuff planned for families. We also play our own games.
Check out these super simple games that will keep your kids interested for hours.
The library is like my happy place (well one of them, including the beach.. and Target). Maybe it’s the mandatory quiet or being surrounded by so much knowledge just waiting to be discovered.
Another thing I love about it is that everything is totally FREE! Our family uses the library for so many great things. Books of course, but also movie rentals, audiobooks, reading programs and fun and educational classes.
I take my kids to the library a lot during the summer. Chances are, your local library has a ton of cool stuff for kids planned throughout the summer. But if they don’t.. or you need some additional activities to keep them interested.. you can plan and play your own library games!
These really work for my kids. We can spend a day doing silly mad libs and scavenger hunts. You simply use the library and the books as a resource for words and ideas.
Here are a few ideas to get you started. You can also grab my FREE library game printables below to get you started.
LIBRARY MAD LIBS
Make your own: Find a short story and remove the nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc and have your kids fill in the blanks.
How it works: Have the kids find each word they need to fill in the blanks from a book or several books. Depending on their age, it’s also a learning tool for word classification.
Print my free Silly Summer Mad Libs:
LIBRARY SCAVENGER HUNT
Make your own: Make a list of things that can be found around a library including words or book titles as well as physical objects like the front desk or a globe.Â
How it works: Challenge your kids to find everything on the list. Chances are, during their hunt they’ll come across a cool book they’d like to read.
Print my free Library Scavenger Hunt:
SUMMER READING CHALLENGE
Lots of libraries also have reading programs set up during the summer and give kids a prize when they reach their goal.
Make your own:Â If your library doesn’t offer one or you just want to do your own, you’ll just need to decide how many books your kids need to read before they get the prize.
How it works: You could give them a prize when they read a certain number of books. You could set a really high goal for a big prize at the end of the summer. Or you could set smaller goals with smaller prizes throughout the summer.
Print my free Summer Reading Challenge:
Be sure to check out these other summer posts:
And you can check out my other summer printable:
Also check out…
What fun activities. We used to love being in the library. I hope others use your suggestions!
Thank you so much! We spend a ton of time at the library.
What a great idea! We’ll have to hit up the library soon and give this a shot. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks! Hope you have fun with it.
The library scavenger hunt is such a good idea! And you have inspired me. I think I’ll do a summer reading challenge with my preschooler this summer, with me reading the books aloud to her!
Yay! That’s so awesome. Good luck!
These are great! I love the library too and am excited about getting my kids to love it as much as I do.
Thanks! It can be a little bit of a struggle sometimes I have to admit, but I hope I can get my kids hooked on the library as well.
So fun! I never thought about playing games like these at the library. Great ideas. It gets so hot here that we end up at the library often in the summer.
Omg. Yes. This SWFL heat drives us to the library a lot too. Perfect cool, calm relaxing place.