How to Stock Up at Dollar Tree for Special Summer Fun at Home

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Want to enjoy awesome summer fun at home without spending a fortune?

Find out how to stock up at Dollar Tree for amazing summer fun for kids. Get creative ideas and tips for making the most of this special time with your family 🙂

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Enjoy Frugal Summer Fun at Home with Your Family

Fun doesn't have to be expensive or complicated. Some of the best memories are oftentimes with simple activities.

Think back to your childhood. Or watching your kids grow up.

What do you remember as being the most fun?

For our family, it's not costly toys or intricate plans.

It's the simple things that allowed us to enjoy a relaxed time together.

Cardboard boxes that carried those costly toys or deliveries. A DIY game of Silent Ball. Sitting around the table, enjoying fun conversation starters.

And summer is one of the best times to get those frugal fun ideas and activities going!

Stock Up at Dollar Tree for Summer Fun at Home

My #1 place for finding frugal supplies is Dollar Tree. I go there because everything really is always $1!

To get ready for an epic summer with my five boys, I went straight to Dollar Tree.

First, I went to Dollar Tree's Summer Fun online page for ideas and inspiration.

Then, I made a list of supplies to get. I found some of these activities and materials at my local Dollar Tree. I ordered the rest via online shopping (my favorite way to shop!).

Remember: You can get Free Shipping to your Local Store <<< Just click there! I'll be trying this option next for our Back to Homeschool shopping 😉

I like to bunch activities by themes whenever possible. I find that it helps with planning and organizing supplies. You'll find these types of summer fun at home suggestions:

Frugal & Creative Outdoor Play
Sports & Activities for Summer Fun at Home
Water Play for Fun Activities with Kids This Summer

Frugal & Creative Outdoor Play for Summer Fun at Home

Sidewalk Chalk

You can never have enough sidewalk chalk for outdoor creative play.

My boys and I love to get outside and enjoy learning fun. Sidewalk chalk is great for practicing math facts, sight words, and more. Great ways to avoid that summer brain drain 😉

Oh, and you can make a fitness fun challenge for your kids! Use sidewalk chalk to jot down creative exercise prompts, like 10 frog jumps or stand like a flamingo for 5 seconds.

Of course, you can always use sidewalk chalk for inspirational messages and pictures. And to celebrate fun days 🙂

Bubbles

With a bit of bubble solution and wand, you can have a blast with bubbles.

Encourage your kids to count how many bubbles they can blow in a minute. Or who can make the biggest bubble?

Another fun activity with bubbles is having two or more people blow bubbles at a time as one person runs through the "bubble cloud".

Glow Sticks

When it gets darker outside, bring out the glow sticks!

Enjoy a glow stick scavenger hunt. Hide glow sticks in random places around your yard. Give your kids a flashlight and start the search. You can also enjoy this game indoors in a dark room 😉

My boys LOVE to use glow sticks to act out some of their favorite books and movies. Glow sticks can become Star Wars lightsabers or Harry Potter magic wands.

Glow Toys

Add a special twist to your summer fun at home with glow-in-the-dark toys. These cars, tops, airplanes, and flutes are super cool!

Balloons for Summer Fun at Home

Enjoy some balloon activities outside this summer. Play balloon volleyball. Use balloons as part of a fun relay race. Draw faces on balloons and put on an outdoor puppet show.

Sports & Activities for Summer Fun at Home

Hula Hoops

Put on some music and have some hula hoop fun. Challenge your kids to see how long they can do a hula hoop.

Place hula hoops on the ground as part of a fun obstacle course.

Use hula hoops as targets for squirt gun or water balloon battles.

And hula hoops work as awesome stencils for sidewalk chalk fun!

Playground Cones

You can make so many fitness fun challenges for kids with playground cones.

Place the cones in a line. Kids can run and weave through the cones. Add the challenge of gently touching the cone without tipping it over.

Grab a soft or plastic ball and use your playground cone to play catch. This fun game can be played individually by tossing the ball up into the air and catching or between two players.

Sport Discs for Summer Fun at Home

These circular discs are shorter and wider than playground cones. You can use sports discs like playground cones in many ways.

My boys love to pair playground cones with sports discs for a fun tossing challenge. Insert the top of a playground cone into the top of a sport disc. Grab a soft or plastic ball and see if you can get it into the cone.

Baseball Fun

Dollar Tree has wonderful plastic baseball sets for kids to use for summer fun at home. Grab a few sets for family and neighborhood games. My boys prefer the Skinny Bat and Baseball set.

Creative Obstacle Course

Use any of the above to make your own obstacle course. Let your kids make their own obstacle course with these supplies and see if you can complete it.

Water Play Activities for Summer Fun at Home

Squirt Guns

Available in different colors, shapes, sizes, Dollar Tree is the place for squirt guns.

Have a squirt gun battle. Or make targets out of cardboard and washi tape as we did. So much fun seeing who can get closest to the target!

Water Balloons

You may want to try Dollar Tree's water balloons. We prefer using regular balloons to make big water balloons for summer fun at home.

My boys and I make a large batch of water balloons and store in our kiddie pool or cooler. Then, we cool off with an epic water balloon war.

Other ways that we cool off with water balloons are tossing them back and forth until the water balloon bursts. Or using our squirt gun cardboard targets for a throwing challenge.

Pool Noodles

We only have a kiddie pool but still have a blast with pool noodles!

Lightweight and flexible, pool noodles are spectacular lightsabers.

You can bend a pool noodle and secure both ends together with duct tape. Great for water balloon and squirt gun targets!

"Capture a Treasure"

My younger boys love to try to "fish" for small plastic toys or balls in our kiddie pool or buckets. They use a net or spoon to try to capture a treasure.

You can also freeze these treasures and let your kids chip away at the ice to "unlock" their treasures 🙂

Do you stock up at Dollar Tree for summer fun supplies? What do you get and how do you use it? Please share your ideas and suggestions in the comments area below!