10 Ways to Give Your Kids One Last Unplugged Adventure Before School Starts
August has a way of sneaking up on you. One minute it’s the Fourth of July, the next you’re standing in a school-supply aisle wondering where summer went. Before the backpacks and bus schedules take over, there’s still time for one more round of the stuff summer is actually for: the kind of days kids remember, not the kind they scroll through.
None of these ideas require a big trip or a big budget. Most can happen in a backyard, a nearby park, or a single weekend campsite. The point isn’t to check every box before September 1. It’s to make sure the last weeks of summer feel like summer, not just a countdown to the first bell. Here are 10 ways to spend the last stretch of August unplugged, together.
1. Plan One Last Overnight
It doesn’t need to be a big production. A backyard tent, a nearby state park, or a last-minute campground reservation all count. The point isn’t the location. It’s the ritual of one more night under canvas before routines take back over.
2. Cook Something Over the Fire, As a Family
Hand every kid a job: skewer duty, foil-packet duty, marshmallow-toasting supervisor. Cooking outdoors turns dinner into an activity instead of a chore, and it’s a skill that sticks with them well past summer.
3. Send Summer Off with the Camp Board Game
Make it a tradition: the last big family game night of the season, around the Camp Board Game. It’s built to grow with your kids year over year, so this August’s game looks a little different from last August’s: proof of how much they’ve grown in a single summer.
4. Go on a Firefly or Night Hike
Late summer evenings are prime firefly season in a lot of the country, and a short flashlight-free walk after dark is its own kind of magic. Bring a jar with holes punched in the lid for anyone who wants to catch and release.
5. Run a Backyard Survival Challenge
Turn 10 Essentials into a hands-on scavenger hunt: see who can gather or identify the most items from the list around the yard or campsite. It’s a fun way to lock in outdoor knowledge before the next school science unit even starts.
6. Have a Water Day
Lake, creek, sprinkler, kiddie pool: doesn’t matter. Block off a full afternoon with no agenda beyond getting wet. These are the low-key days that somehow become the ones kids talk about most, precisely because nobody planned them to death.
7. Start a Summer Memory Journal
Grab a notebook and have each kid write or draw their top three moments of the summer. It takes twenty minutes and becomes something you’ll actually want to read again next August.
8. Go Geocaching or Run a Backyard Treasure Hunt
A free geocaching app turns any park into a treasure hunt, or DIY it with a hand-drawn map and a hidden “prize” in the yard. Either way, it’s screen time with a purpose: five minutes of looking at a phone versus an hour of searching outside.
9. Load Up CAMP: Travel Edition for One Last Road Trip
Whether it’s a day trip to a state park or a longer haul before school starts, CAMP: Travel Edition keeps the car quiet without a single screen. It’s small enough to keep in the car full-time once September hits, too.
10. Sit Around One Last Bonfire and Plan Next Summer
End the season the way it should end: everyone around the fire, looking back at the best parts of summer and already planning where to go next year. It gives kids something to look forward to on the first tough day of school.
The Point of All This
What these ten ideas need most is a little intention before summer quietly turns into syllabus week: a decision, made now, to spend a few more evenings outside instead of in front of a screen by default. Kids won’t remember the exact date summer ended. They’ll remember whether the last weeks felt like an afterthought or like the best part of the whole break. For more screen-free ideas to stretch these last few weeks, browse our full collection of outdoor games and activities, built for exactly this kind of last hurrah.