Creative Ways to Spend a Summer Day

The summer season is perfect for getting out of the house and test driving some new creative pastimes. The days are longer, and all that extra daylight allows you to complete those monotonous tasks you’ve been avoiding and still have time for fun summer day activities. Occasional boredom is to be expected over a long summer break, so if you’re hard up for exciting things to do, try out the following suggestions for a fun-filled and creative summer.

Creative Ways to Spend a Summer Day

If you’re looking to beat the heat, seek out a coffee shop, a cafe, or even take an ice cream cone to the park, and go on an imagination scavenger hunt. Can you find the person who is really an alien from a distant galaxy? How about the person who is a circus performer by day and crime-fighting superhero Marshmallow Man by night? Which couple walking a dog down the street is really a pair of undercover spies walking a high-tech weapon cleverly disguised as a dog? Make sure you’re able to justify your answers based on the way your choices behave, the clothes they’re wearing, or the snatches of conversation you overhear. Bring along a pencil and a notebook – you never know when you may need a character for a novel, short story, or screenplay, and this will give you a handy pool to draw from. If you’re a fan of group activities, you can also invite some friends along and spend the day challenging each other to find different characters.

High school and college students will be intimately acquainted with the idea of a summer reading list. I’d like to propose to you a summer creativity list. Whatever your personal strengths, be they writing, drawing, cooking, etc., challenge yourself to use them more often and in more challenging ways this summer. If you’re a writer who likes to stick to third person point of view, make a list of short story ideas and try writing them entirely in the second person. If you’re a painter who usually sticks to images of people, make a list of unusual animals (duck-billed platypus, anyone?) and challenge yourself to paint them. The most important thing is to stick to your “summer creativity list” like you did (or were supposed to!) with your summer reading list – follow through like you’re going to be graded on your efforts at the end of the summer by the strictest teacher in the school.

Summer activities usually lend themselves well to group bonding. Gather your friends and get creative together! Pizza parties in which guests make their own pizzas are so last summer – this summer, the trend is taco bars. In addition to the basics (shells, lettuce, and salsa) invite guests to bring whatever they think would be especially delicious in a taco and go crazy. You can also mix different tropical fruit juices, pour into ice trays, add toothpicks, and freeze to create mini fruity popsicles. Whatever your poison, adding in good friend and a dash of creativity is guaranteed to make it even more delicious.

No matter what your summer plans may be, work in some creative activities (and encourage your friends to join in)! You’ll still feel relaxed at the end of your summer day, but you’ll also feel accomplished, and that is what summer is all about.