Summer Unscripted: Fresh Ideas for Kids to Learn, Grow, and Explore

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Summer arrives with a promise of freedom and discovery, but for many parents, that promise quickly morphs into a logistical challenge. How do you keep your child engaged when school’s out, screens beckon, and neighborhood options wear thin by mid-July? If you’re a parent either struggling to find options or just hoping to go beyond the expected, there are plenty of creative, enriching paths to explore. These activities can spark curiosity, build confidence, and introduce your child to new possibilities—all while keeping summer fun and fresh.

Supporting Artistic Expression

Children are natural creators, and summer is the perfect time to let them embrace their inner artist. Enroll them in a local community center art class or supply them with the tools to dive into at-home projects. Think beyond crayons and coloring books—introduce them to pottery, abstract painting, or collage-making from recycled materials. The goal isn’t to create masterpieces but to give kids permission to explore self-expression in vibrant, unstructured ways.

Creating Art with AI Tools

As technology blends with creativity, AI-generated art is quickly becoming one of the most exciting new avenues for self-expression. Your child can type in a prompt to create an image, then customize the style, colors, and lighting to make it their own. Handy online tools offer ways to generate AI art that can be printed, displayed, or even turned into comic books or cards. This activity blends digital literacy with imaginative thinking, and it’s perfect for kids interested in both tech and visual storytelling.

Coding Isn’t Just for Adults

You don’t need to wait until high school to introduce your child to coding. Platforms like Scratch, Tynker, and Bitsbox make programming accessible, playful, and rewarding for even elementary schoolers. Coding builds problem-solving skills and encourages your child to think logically while creating their own games, stories, or animations. Plus, it’s a quiet activity that still feels like screen time, which is often a win-win scenario for kids and parents alike.

Giving Them the Stage

While some kids are shy, others love the spotlight—and theater arts offer a unique outlet for both. Drama workshops, improv classes, and puppet-making groups give children a space to practice empathy, storytelling, and self-confidence. If there’s no theater camp nearby, try homegrown alternatives: help them write a script and stage a backyard production with neighbors or siblings. It’s a collaborative process that can help children understand different perspectives and think creatively on their feet.

Encouraging Entrepreneurism

Even young kids can dip a toe into the world of small business with surprisingly rewarding results. Instead of the traditional lemonade stand, encourage your child to brainstorm services they can realistically provide pet-sitting, car washing, tech help for grandparents, or tutoring younger peers. Walking them through simple budgeting and marketing not only develops math and communication skills but instills a deep sense of ownership. A summer venture like this can spark a lifetime of self-starter mentality.

Volunteering as a Family

Getting your child involved in volunteer work teaches compassion, responsibility, and perspective. Look for family-friendly opportunities like sorting donations at a food bank, reading to seniors, or walking dogs at a local shelter. Some organizations even run youth-focused programs that combine volunteering with learning modules and peer collaboration. When kids give their time for something bigger than themselves, they come away with more than a line on a college resume—they grow as humans.

Leveraging the Magic of Gardening

You might not think of gardening as a high-energy summer activity, but it taps into both science and patience in deeply fulfilling ways. Give your child a small patch of soil or a few containers, and let them grow herbs, vegetables, or flowers from seed. In caring for something living, kids learn consistency, observation, and environmental stewardship. Watching something sprout and bloom under their care gives them a quiet sense of pride that's hard to match.

Instead of viewing summer as an obstacle, it helps to see it as a blank canvas. Whether your child is curious about languages, plants, tech, or performance, there’s a way to harness their interests into something memorable. These months can foster emotional growth, academic development, and lifelong passions if given the right outlets. And when the first day of school rolls back around, your child won’t just return older—they’ll come back transformed.

Ain’t Wasting Time No More

Last Sunday morning, the sunshine felt like rain.
The week before, they all seemed the same.
With the help of God and true friends, I've come to realize,
I still have two strong legs, and even wings to fly.

So I, ain't a-wastin time no more.
Cause time rolls by like hurricanes.
Runnin' after the subway train.
Don't forget the pourin' rain.
- Gregg Allman

A few months ago, I was challenged by my good friend Stacy on Facebook to share a Bible verse that has a special meaning to me. The biggest challenge turned out to be narrowing my choice to a single verse. I finally chose Joel 2:25 because, as I’ve gotten older and my time on earth is getting shorter, I’ve begun to reflect more and more on the value and proper use of time. This verse, in which God is speaking to the Israelites, reads:

'I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten - the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm - my great army that I sent among you (Joel 2:25).

For years, I pondered how God could restore the time out of my life that the locust ate (time I had wasted for selfish reasons). I've now come to the conclusion that the various implications of this verse can only be fully appreciated later in life. As I started entering my response to Stacy it quickly became apparent that it would be too long for Facebook, and that I needed to do a blog post. As I was writing this post, I decided that I needed a full article on the main website to do justice to the subject. After researching the first article, I then decided to write two additional articles and modified this blog post to introduce them.

The first article, entitled The Days the Locusts Ate, is my primary response to Stacy's challenge. I explore the original context of the verse and its meaning for Christians today. I also explain how God can restore lost time in our lives - time that we thought was gone forever.

While Joel 2:25 speaks of God taking the initiative to restore lost time, there is a NT verse in which the Apostle Paul exhorts us to make good use of the time that God has graciously allotted to us.

Be very careful, then, how you live - not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is (Eph 5:15-17).

I must admit that I have a lot of work to do in allowing God to use my time efficiently for His glory (the irony is not lost that it took several months to budget the time required for writing these articles), but I’m making an honest attempt to improve. As a start, I originally wrote this blog post from the Atlanta airport during a layover from Florida to Dallas.

To expand on the above NT verses from Ephesians, I added the Redeeming the Time article in which we explore the meaning of time, its theological basis, and why we should properly redeem the time to make the most of our opportunities. We also mention several pitfalls to avoid that rob us of time, and offer practical Biblical suggestions for wise use of our time.

Finally, in Jigsaw Puzzles and Roadmaps, we provide a couple of illustrations that contrasts how we understand and interrelate the events of our lives with God’s understanding according to his divine purposes. Abraham had to wait 25 years for the child of promise (Isaac). Our friend Stacy prayed Psalms 113:9 for years in her longing to become a mother. Now she is blessed with two wonderful boys. We’ll never completely understand all the details of why certain things happen (or don't happen) this side of heaven, but we can be confident that God’s timing is perfect as He works out everything for the good of those who love Him (Rom 8:28), even if it doesn’t make sense to us at the time.

Ramblings about College Days and Cartoonists

It is no secret to our regular readers that I greatly admire the talents of many cartoonists. It began back in college, where one on my best friends from our tennis team was an art major. He was into everything, from drawing to painting to sculptures. Eventually, he talked me into attempting some of these tasks, all with disastrous results with the exception of one. I found that I was somewhat blessed with a passable knack for drawing and shading with pencil or charcoal. I have since loaded some of my attempts in the Artwork Section of our main site.

Given an hour or so, I could make a decent replica of what I observed, but I was fascinated by a few students who could quickly sketch out a caricature of a person or thing in a matter of minutes. Years later, while managing our computer graphics and print shop, I often needed a catchy piece of art for a school-fundraiser, safety promotions for an industrial client, or for various other types of programs. I sometimes did my own, but in most cases, I would turn to a couple of friends for the artwork. One worked as a cartoonist for an area newspaper and the other was the minister of education/music at a local church who did freelance art on the side. I was continually amazed at the detail, the range of expressions, the depth of a story that these artists could portray with just a few strokes of the pen.

Since it usually takes me a page or two to say what a good artist can communicate with a simple sketch, I often employ these toons as a means of reviewing events of interest to our readers (not to mention the fact that it’s also much more fun). So, as we pass the halfway point of the year 2012, we’ll be posting a series of reviews featuring many gifted and talented artists. The first, which will be uploaded in the next day or two, is intended to be a summary or overture of many of the various events, subjects, controversies and commentaries on our current society from the past six months. The other review posts will primarily be grouped by subjects, and will be loaded later, along with some other articles. We hope you enjoy them.

Poetry about Life

I’ve been spending the majority of my free time over the past few weeks on a couple of projects on the main website. We’ve now taken down our original blog, which was more like a semi-blog with limited interactivity with our readers. The articles are now linked from various other sections according to their subject. Most can be found in our Religion and Culture, Christian Living, or Military and Patriotism sections. We’ll probably also link a few from this blog in the near future.

Next, we’ve finally completed our William "Poet Bill" Childers Poetry section that began about three years ago. Bill had published one book of poetry, Integrity of The Spirit, Escaping The Mind-Game!, and was working on his newest, to be tentatively called Leaves from the Acorn Tree. Unfortunately, health issues delayed, then finally canceled this project, so he graciously gave us the transcripts to publish on our website instead.

I met Poet Bill via one of my best friends, a Dallas Police Officer during the time that Bill was their precinct chaplain. Bill served as a USMC tank gunner in the Korean War before becoming an ordained Minister with the Methodist Church. He then returned to active duty with the US Navy for 21 years, including a year in Vietnam as a Chaplain with the 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines. After returning home to the First United Methodist Church in Dallas, Bill eventually retired but continued to teach Sunday School, where he often read his poetry and played his guitar. He even wrote a few songs.

Shortly after we met, his health failed and he was placed in assisted living. During my last visit, he told me how he couldn’t understand “the fuss some people made” over his poetry. He never thought of his poetry as anything special. As we talked about our various writings, we discovered a common experience. We both worked hard on many writings of which we were proud, yet they often were met with a ho-hum from readers. At other times, we wrote things out of a “sense of duty” that we didn’t think much of, only to receive glowing feedback from many folks. We could only explain this by God working though our imperfect efforts, proving once again that our works often return void, yet His never do.

After this last visit, I was sorry to hear that Bill was transferred to an out of the area facility, so we lost touch about two years ago. At the time, I had only published a small percentage of his poems. His computer had crashed, and I only had paper copies of the transcripts. I typically won’t publish anything by others on the website without reading it first. Since I’d never developed an appreciation for poetry, and didn’t know much about it (other than the Hebrew poetry of the Bible), I started to break my rule by scanning and running OCR software on the poems. I’m now very glad I didn’t. By re-typing them, I was able to read them in depth and discover many additional details about Bill since he wrote extensively of his life within his poetry.

Poet Bill wrote stories about his life, his friends, his family, his military service and so much more. I was very blessed to know him, even for a very short time. Yet, for those who knew him, it almost seems as if he’s still here every time we read one of his poems. We are very proud to publish Bill’s poetry and hope they bless our readers as much as they have us.