6 June Activities to Celebrate Summer, LGBTQIA+ Pride, Dads and Juneteenth
Take advantage of extra time with your child this June by trying new family activities geared towards summer fun. Besides being the start of summer, June is a month of important celebrations and events, including LGBTQIA+ Pride Month, Father's Day and Juneteenth. Try these activities and book lists to celebrate June events together as a family and learn STEM concepts simultaneously.
Have Summer Fun
Here are summer activities you can try as a family that teach kids early STEM concepts.
Make a Paper Kite
Make memories together this summer by designing a simple paper kite together! Kites are great for talking about measurement, shapes and symmetry. Older children can explore symmetry even further by making the two halves of the kite match each other, just like a butterfly's wings! For this kite-making activity, you will need a sheet of paper, a stapler, a ruler, a length of string, and a popsicle stick. Check out our easy instructions and fun ways for your child's math knowledge to take flight.
Design Fun Bubble Wands
You will need pipe cleaners, bubble-blowing liquid, and a small bowl or dish to make your own bubble wands.
- Use pipe cleaners to create different shapes like a circle, diamond, square or star. For young children, first, draw the shapes on a piece of paper for your child to copy with the pipe cleaner. Talk about the properties of the shapes, such as how many sides and corners they have.
- Attach a second pipe cleaner to the shape. This will be the handle for your bubble wand.
- Pour the bubble-blowing liquid into a dish and test each bubble wand in the bubble solution. Make your own bubble formula for extra chemistry fun by combining water, dish soap, and corn syrup!
- Together with your child, explore and compare the effectiveness of different wand shapes at blowing bubbles. Then, talk about the results of your experiment together. Do you notice any patterns in which kinds of shapes do better than others?
Make Ice Cream in a Bag
Make your own ice cream in a bag by following a simple ice cream in a bag recipe like this one from Delish. You will need one small plastic bag, one large plastic bag, half-and-half, sugar, vanilla, salt and lots of ice cubes. Use measuring cups to measure out the correct amounts of each ingredient. Use a timer and have your child shake, shake, shake for 10-15 minutes. Then, enjoy your delicious homemade ice cream! Find some ideas to talk about the science behind your treat in "3 Fun Ways to Build Science Skills in the Summer."
You can also try another recipe for ice cream in a bag from Mya, the Full-Time Kid!
Read Children's Books About Juneteenth
June 19, also called Freedom Day or Juneteenth, honors the end of slavery in the United States. Although the Emancipation Proclamation was signed in 1863, it was only until June 19, 1865, that news of the proclamation finally reached enslaved Texans. Thanks to activists like Opal Lee, who educated the public about the day's importance and is the center of the children's book "Opal Lee and What It Means to Be Free," by Alice Faye Duncan, Juneteenth became a federal holiday in 2021.
Talk about the significance of Juneteenth together as a family. Begin by reading "Opal Lee and What It Means to Be Free" and browsing thisJuneteenth book list from Romper, which includes 15 must-read books
to help kids understand the history of Juneteenth and the emancipation of all Americans on this date. Another great Juneteenth book for kids is "Juneteenth for Mazie" by Floyd Copper. It's a beautiful picture book for kids ages 6-9 about a child learning about Juneteenth. Check out these books from your library or purchase books from a Black-owned business, such asMahogany Books.
You can also watch educational media with your children, like this"Sesame Street" song that celebrates Juneteenth or this informational video about Juneteenth from PBS Learning Media for kids in grades K-5.
Make Pancakes Together for Father's Day
Father's Day is celebrated every year in the U.S. on the third Sunday of June. Celebrate your family and community's father figures with these activities.
Try cooking together with a kid-friendly pancake recipe. Before you make your pancakes, here are tips for how to incorporate math into your cooking:
- Have your child help with measuring the dry ingredients like flour and sugar. Show your child how to make precise measurements using measuring cups and spoons.
- Incorporate counting into your cooking. Count together how many cups, teaspoons and tablespoons you need, and count individual toppings like sliced bananas or raisins! Using a digital or manual timer, you can also have your child keep track of cooking time before flipping the pancakes.
- Talk about shapes and location and position words while arranging the pancakes to make designs, like silly animal faces! For example, make one large, one medium, and two small pancakes to make a monkey face. Ask your child how they might arrange the circles to create the monkey face. Which pancakes should be the face? The nose? The ears? Where should they be placed? Use location and position words like above, next to, on top of, etc.
After making the pancakes, add optional toppings, like sliced fruit, to add flavor and make fun pancake designs!
Then, to go with your pancakes, read "Sometimes We Do" about "daddy days," when a little boy named Johari and his dad, the author and math talk expert Omowale Moses, make pancakes and play with trains together. Find other ideas on how to help your child learn in the kitchen.
Create a Rainbow Painting for LGBTQIA+ Pride Month
June is LGBTQIA+ Pride month! LGBTQIA+ stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer. Model thoughtful practices for your child year-round and learn how to have age-appropriate conversations about pronouns and expressions of gender identity with your kids.
LGBTQIA+ people and allies use rainbow flags to symbolize pride and support. For this activity, your child will make a rainbow painting using rectangular sponges of different sizes that fit together like a puzzle. You will need paper, sponges, scissors, paint in the colors of the rainbow and paper plates.
- Cut three or four sponges into rectangles and squares of different sizes. Talk about the defining properties of a rectangle and square. Rectangles have four sides and four corners where all the corners form right angles. Squares are a special kind of rectangle where all the sides also have equal lengths.
- On two or more paper plates, pour out a small amount of each paint color. Have your child pick one rectangle sponge to put in each paint color.
- Model for your child how to press the sponge into the paint on the paper plate, then press the sponge onto the paper to leave a rectangular print. The goal is to cover all the blank spaces on the paper plate with rectangles and rectangles.
Inspired byWhat We Can Do With Paper and Glue's "Fit-It-Together Sponge Painting."
