15 Low-Key Things to Do with the Kids on Labour Day Weekend

For many families, Labour Day weekend is the unofficial end of summer and the last weekend before school starts. Somehow that makes it feel like there’s an awful lot riding on those final three days.

Should we go somewhere? Do something special? Squeeze in one last summer adventure? Have we been to the beach enough? Did we ever go mini-golfing? Wait, didn’t we promise the kids we’d go to that water park?

And before you turn that unofficial last weekend of summer into an endurance event, here’s your permission to dial it way, way back.

We’re heading back to early mornings, packing lunches, homework, extracurriculars, and schedules. You’re heading back to making sure all of these things actually happen. Nobody necessarily needs to spend the weekend standing in line for something. Let’s keep it low key, shall we?

Here Are 15 Low-key Ways to Enjoy the Last Long Weekend of Summer:

1. Go Back to Your Favourite Beach

Not the best beach and not the beach you saw on Instagram that’s an hour and 45 minutes away. Just your beach. Pack towels, snacks, sunscreen, and whatever toys are still rolling around in the trunk of the car and spend a few hours doing absolutely nothing ambitious.

Bonus points if you decide to grab fast food instead of packing the perfect picnic.

2. Have a Yes Day (Within Reason!)

Ice cream before lunch? Sure. Pajamas until 2 p.m.? Why not? Movie in the middle of the afternoon? Absolutely!

There’s no need to commit to the full-blown, anything-goes version of a YES DAY. But just let everyone choose one small thing they’d really like to do and see how many you can accommodate.

3. Go for Ice Cream After Dinner

Sometimes the smallest little outings feel the most like summer. Have dinner at home, pile everyone into the car or walk to your neighbourhood ice cream shop, and let everyone order what they want. Splurge on double scoops if you’re feeling it!

4. Have a Backyard Campout

No packing, loading the car, buying firewood, or spending three hours trying to remember which bin contains the camping stove. Set up the tent in the backyard, make s’mores, use flashlights, tell ghost stories, look for stars, and enjoy the absolute greatest luxury in camping which is a functioning bathroom a mere 20 feet away. And if everyone gets uncomfortable at 11pm, go inside to your comfy bed.

5. Let the Kids Stay Up Ridiculously Late

School-night bedtimes and daily routines are coming. Pick Friday or Saturday night and don’t look at the clock. Watch a movie outside, play cards, sit around a fire pit, go for a walk with flashlights, or just let the kids keep playing until they’re actually tired. These are core when core memories are made. There’s something wonderfully summery about realizing it’s dark outside and nobody has made you go to bed yet.

6. Have a Family Movie Marathon

Everyone gets to choose one movie. Make popcorn, order pizza, and drag blankets and pillows into the living room and settle in. You can even make it a theme with movies from your childhood, animated favourites, Star Wars, superheroes, musicals, or movies set during summer. And closing the blinds at 2 in the afternoon on a beautiful day is allowed.

7. Go Somewhere You’ve Been a Hundred Times

This is not the weekend to discover that the “hidden gem” you drove 90 minutes to check out has nowhere to park. Walk down the street to the park your kids love. Walk the trail you’ve walked dozens of times. Visit the playground where you already know where the bathrooms are. This is not the weekend for stress and the familiar can be deeply underrated.

8. Have a Sundae Bar for Dinner

Put out ice cream and a wild assortment of toppings and call it dinner. Add fruit to make it balanced.

9. Take a Family Bike Ride with No Destination

Pick an easy cycling route and just go for a ride. Let the kids lead and stop if somebody sees an interesting playground. Grab a cold drink somewhere and turn around once everyone starts complaining.

The point is not to cover kilometres or a certain part of the city. It’s to go somewhere together as a family.

10. Have a “Lasts of Summer” Scavenger Hunt

Make a list of little things that feel like summer and see how many you can find over the weekend:

• A butterfly
• Someone eating a popsicle
• A sprinkler
• A chalk drawing
• A lemonade stand
• A dog swimming
• A picnic
• A sunflower
• A convertible with the top down
• Someone wearing flip-flops

Little kids can draw or check off what they find and the older kids can take pictures on their phone.

11. Let Everyone Have a Do-Nothing Afternoon

This may be the most radical suggestion on the list. Don’t make a plan, don’t announce an activity and most importantly, don’t worry that everyone is “wasting the day.”

Let the kids play video games, read, draw, text their friends, build something, lie around, or complain that they’re bored. You are also permitted to do the same.

12. Eat Dinner Outside

You don’t need to host a Labour Day barbecue or a big end-of-summer bash. Make whatever you were going to make anyway and carry it outside. Eat on the deck, the balcony, the front porch, at a picnic table in the park, or sitting on a blanket in the backyard.

The cooler evenings are coming fast so take advantage of one more dinner outside while you still can.

13. Have a Neighbourhood Kids’ Night

Text a couple of families you actually like and keep it deliberately casual. Let the kids run around while the adults chill somewhere nearby. Have everyone bring something to drink or snack on. There’s no need for invitations or decorations and no elaborate menu or planning. And absolutely no cleaning the house beforehand.

If you’re spending two days preparing for it, you’ve missed the point.

14. Let the Kids Choose the Adventure

Give your kids a budget like $20 or $30 and let them decide what the family should do. Maybe they’ll choose slushies and a trip to the park. Or maybe it’s buying ridiculous snacks at the bulk or dollar store for movie night. Maybe it’s mini golf or glo-bowl.

By giving kids control over something small you can turn a completely ordinary outing into an event.

15. Do Absolutely Nothing on Labour Day. Nothing!

For real though! Sleep in. Make pancakes and let everyone putter around.

Maybe take a walk. Or don’t.

And order dinner in if you can.

Because Tuesday morning is coming, and with it comes alarm clocks, backpacks, permission forms, practices, homework, lunches, and the familiar questions of why do we have so many water bottles? (Soon to be replaced with, “Where the heck are all of our water bottles?!”

There is no prize for arriving at the first day of school having extracted every possible ounce of fun from summer and sometimes the very best way to end it is simply to enjoy being together with nowhere you have to be.

You Don’t Have to Make the Most of Every Minute

Sometimes we put an insane amount of pressure on ourselves around the end of summer to make it count.

And certainly, if your family wants to spend Labour Day weekend at a festival, amusement park, cottage, campground, or squeezing in one final road trip… by all means go for it!

But do keep in mind that a memorable childhood isn’t one exclusively full of big adventures.

Because summer is a dripping ice cream cone eaten on the way home and it’s staying outside after dark. Summer is bare feet in the backyard, popcorn on the couch, and hearing your kids talking when they’re supposed to be asleep.

Before school schedules take over, maybe the best thing we can give ourselves and our kids is one weekend where nothing needs to be accomplished at all. But definitely make the lunches before you go to bed on Monday night!