An Old-Fashioned Summer Bucket List (Free Printable)
When did summer get so complicated? Somewhere between the sign-up sheets and the screens and the drive to the next thing, the simplest season of the year turned into the busiest one. And I don’t think that’s what any of us actually wanted.
So I made a little something to help us slow it back down — a free printable old-fashioned summer bucket list, full of the simple, screen-free things that made summer feel like summer when we were young. What’s on it? Mostly the kind of things nobody ever had to teach a child to love.
Remember summers like this? I grew up on a long dirt road in rural Georgia, and my summers were mostly just being home. Riding my bike, disappearing into the woods, catching fireflies in a jar right about the time my mama called us in for the night.
Nobody scheduled any of it. We just lived it.
That’s the whole idea behind this list. Not one more thing to add to an already-full calendar, but a gentle nudge back toward the slow, ordinary, unhurried days — the ones our children will actually remember. A popsicle that drips down to your elbow. A book read in the shade. A jar of lightning bugs blinking on the porch rail.
Related: Old School Summer: What We Lost (And How to Get It Back)
What’s on the list
Every item is simple, low-tech, and doesn’t cost much of anything — just a little time and a willingness to let the day be ordinary:
- Go on a picnic
- Write a letter to someone you love
- Find shapes in the clouds
- Snap a bowl of fresh green beans
- Bake something with grandma
- Eat a fresh watermelon
- Ride a bike until the streetlights come on
- Eat a popsicle
- Stay up late to watch the stars
- Run through the sprinklers
- Catch fireflies and put them in a jar
- Make homemade lemonade
- Read a book outside in the shade
- Pick berries or wildflowers
Not a screen in sight. And that’s rather the point.
How to use it
Print it out and tape it somewhere everybody sees it — the fridge, the pantry door, the back of the kitchen chair. Let your children work their way through it all summer long, checking things off as you go.
And you don’t have to do all of it. Even a handful of these, done slowly and without hurry, will change the whole feel of your summer. This is the day which the Lord hath made — and the ordinary ones really are worth savoring.
Grab your free printable
You can print the Old-Fashioned Summer Bucket List and hang it up today. Just fill out the form below and I’ll send it straight to you.
If you want more than a printable — if you want the actual routines, planners, and gentle rhythms to build a slower, more unhurried home for your family all year long — that’s exactly what we do together inside The Homemaker’s Society. It’s where your people are, sweet friend, and I’d love for you to come join us.
Click the button below to become a member.
