Free - Youth Workin' It

Today’s officially the first day of summer, so if you haven’t planned what you’ll be doing over the coming weeks yet, here are some ideas for you.

The best thing is that these summer youth group activities are all free, so perfect for your program’s budget! A few of them may have some miscellaneous costs depending on how they’re organized – for example, trips out may need to include the cost of gas or parking, although parents may be able to carpool and offer lifts.

These activity ideas are also a great way to encourage team building, especially if you can include new young people who are due to join your youth group at the start of the new school year.

10 Free Summer Youth Group Activities

Organize a giant water fight – You can keep it free by having the teenagers bring their own super soakers and water balloons. Take a look at these water games for youth for additional game ideas to get the youth wet.
Plan a scavenger hunt – There are many different types you can play, but here are a few ideas from our sister site Scavenger Hunt – at a mall, a 4th of July theme or funny items and tasks.
Go for a hike – This can be done on a nature trail, a state park or in the mountains if you have some nearby.
Go to the beach – I think this one’s self-explanatory enough.
Have a picnic – Go to a local park and have the youth bring their own lunches. Play a few games while you’re there.
Go litter-picking – Beautify your community by picking up trash. This can be a great thing to highlight to your local newspaper or TV stations, as they may want to come out and give your group some coverage. It can also be used as a youth group fundraiser.
Plan a movie night – If you have the equipment available, try to organize it for the evening and display it on a large screen outside. The evening could be just for youth or you could make it a family movie night. Bear in mind that you might need a license.
Organize a games day – There are many different games you can play, but here are a few suggestions of games that will be free if you already have the resources on hand:
Human Battleship
Bowl Hole
Spongehead
Ping Pong Ball Relay
Yes Or No Game
Newspaper War
Crab Soccer
The Welly Wang
Run life skills workshops – See if people in your church or local community can come in and help with applicable skills, resume writing, etc. You can find all kinds of life skill ideas here.
Plan a video project – Encourage your teenagers’ creativity by setting them a movie project. Get them to write a script, act and film it, edit the video, etc. You could then play it during a movie night (see point 7 above).

Question: So those are our ideas of some youth group activities you could organize this summer – what other free ideas can you suggest? Let us know in the comments below.

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PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS OFFER HAS NOW ENDED

Next month, we’re launching our second youth work resource – 52 Scavenger Hunt Ideas. As the name suggests, the book has enough scavenger hunt ideas so that you could do a different one each week of the year if you wanted.

Each idea comes complete with a list of resources needed, any additional preparation required (usually none) and instructions on how to run the scavenger hunt.

Most helpful of all though is that every single idea comes complete with a list of scavenger hunt items that need to be found. This list can be photocopied, meaning there’s pretty much nothing that you need to do as we’ve taken care of it for you!

That’s not all though. We have a number of pre-release copies to give away to youth workers just like you. It doesn’t matter where you live in the world – we’re happy to ship it anywhere, all for free. All that we ask is that once you’ve looked through the book, you review it on Amazon.

Don’t worry, we’re not being shady about this – we’re not asking you to say it’s amazing if that’s not what you think. We just want genuine reviews from people who have actually read the book. Regardless of what rating you give it, the book will be yours to keep.

How do I get a free copy?

~~Just get in contact with us by either:~~

~~Emailing us – scavengerhunt at youthworkinit dot com~~
~~Using our contact page~~

It really is as simple as that. We’ll reply to everybody that contacts us to let you know if you’re one of the lucky people to get a free copy. If you are, we’ll ask for your mailing address so that we can send you a copy fresh from the printers. Don’t delay though – you only have until 24 September 2012 to be considered for this free copy of 52 Scavenger Hunt Ideas.

In the meantime, check out some of our scavenger hunt ideas to get an idea of what our new book will be like, as well as our first book – How To Plan A Youth Retreat.