8 Kid-Friendly 4th of July Activities

Fourth of July celebrations are exciting for kids, but fireworks aren’t always the safest way for little hands to join in the fun. These kid-friendly 4th of July activities are a great way to keep children busy, creative, and safely involved in the patriotic celebrations without needing anything loud, dangerous, or complicated.

From red, white, and blue crafts to hands-on art projects and simple summer activities, these ideas are perfect for classrooms, summer camps, playdates, homeschool lessons, or backyard family gatherings. They still bring all the sparkle and festive fun of Independence Day, but in a way that is safe, easy to set up, and fun for younger children.

Whether you are planning a Fourth of July lesson, looking for patriotic kids crafts, or just need a few screen-free activities before the fireworks begin, these creative projects will help kids celebrate the holiday with color, imagination, and plenty of hands-on fun.

Each year there are hundreds of children who are injured while trying to play with fireworks. Make sure you little ones are safe this year by keeping them occupied with safe crafts that will still keep them in the patriotic spirit. These are all fun and quite easy, and most importantly safe!

Looking for 4th of July decorations? Check these supplies out.

We also have 100’s of 4th of July Patriotic crafts and 4th of July recipes too.

1- Patriotic Jewelry from Buggy and Buddy

2- Popsicle Star Streamers from Happiness is Homemade

3- Fork Fireworks from Crafty Morning

4- Straw Rockets from The Pleasantest Thing

5- Balloon Game from Mess For Less

6- Star Spangled Slime from I Can Teach My Child

7- Salt Art Fireworks from Kiwi Co.

8- Qtip Fireworks from Crafty Morning

Did you know that October is Squirrel Awareness Month? I didn’t know we needed more awareness of these little creatures, but let’s take it as a sign to learn more about squirrels!

Let’s start with some fun facts via Kids Konnect: did you know there are five subfamilies and more that 280 species of squirrels? The smallest are pygmy squirrels and the largest, the Bhutan giant flying squirrel, can be longer that 4 feet (1.2 meters).

Tree squirrels can climb down trees so fast because their ankles can rotate 180 degrees, allowing them to grab the tree bark as they go down. While most squirrels don’t survive their first year of life, they can live five to 10 years in the wild and squirrels have been known to live up to 20 years in captivity!

Rhythms of Play has more fun facts and tips for observing squirrels if you want to add some real life nature to your nature study.

We always like to start these collections with life cycle and parts of the animal printables, so let’s grab the squirrel life cycle an parts of a squirrel worksheets from Montessori Nature. (It doesn’t look like these are free any more but they have a whole unit study on squirrels you can buy that includes life cycle and parts activities, characteristics of different kinds of squirrels, a printable poster, information about predators and more.)

Grab the squirrel lapbook printable (free with email address) from Homeschool Share to learn the parts of a squirrel, where they live, what they eat, whether they hibernate and more. There’s also a nut taste test printable, a place for making observations about squirrels, life cycle of an oak tree, games and more.

Simple Everyday Mom has some cute squirrel themed worksheets including tracing the letter s, labeling the parts of a squirrel and a letter s maze. She also has more activity pages with a squirrel theme, including matching, a more traditional maze and a counting and graphing activity.

Work on letter recognition with this squirrel and acorn game printable from Teaching Mama. I love the idea of hiding the letters in a fall themed sensory bin for kids to find, identify and match to the letter on the worksheet.

For older kids you can do this “if I were a squirrel” writing prompt from Lesson Planet.

And throw in a little counting with these squirrel and acorn tens frame printables from JDaniel4’s Mom, which you can use to count real acorns or any other little fall themed thing you have handy.

Have you read?

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