Published 5/28/26
BlueWaterParent.com Founder, Jennie McClelland, offers tips on planning summer activities for children.
With Memorial Day in the books, Father’s Day around the corner, and daffodils popping up through the ground, it’s not hard to start thinking about summer. Parents often struggle with managing their kids’ summer schedules. Should it be free-range? Structured? A combination of both?
If your days are structured with planned activities, kids have something to look forward to and get to spend time doing fun things with other kids. If your days are unstructured, there’s more freedom to spend with grandparents, go on spontaneous trips, and embrace the beauty of lazy days.
Day Camps
Organizations in the Blue Water Area offer plenty for children to do. While many parents rely on day camps to provide quality childcare while they are at work, they’re an exceptional resource for many different family situations. You can check out the BlueWaterParent.com Day Camp Guide to see what’s out there.
Free Activities and Festivals
There are free activities galore offered through the St. Clair County Library System, local churches, and other organizations. You can find a daily breakdown of these on our BlueWaterParent.com Events Calendar.
There are also incredible fairs and festivals throughout the summer. Some offer free admission options, while others have entry fees. Check out Fairs and Festivals Guide and don’t forget to enter to win a free week’s pass to the St. Clair County 4H and Youth Fair here.
Of course, we also have an enormous Great Lake and miles of sand, along with parks and recreational spaces. Summer in the Blue Water area, or ThumbCoast (as the cool kids say), is special. Did you know BlueWaterParent.com has a Guide to Beaches, Pools, and Splash Pads?
Finding the Right Balance
When my kids were young, I vacillated between free-range summers with “the gift of boredom” and tightly scheduled summers with spreadsheets and carpooling plans. My kids took music, robotics, and pottery classes at SC4. They took every Port Huron Recreation Department class they could get into—from theater to archaeology to EVERY sport possible. We went to all the free library events on the calendar. Some years, we overdid it with the scheduling. Some years, we wished we had integrated a bit more structure into our days.
We also went to the beach just about every day—and I have the skin cancer spots to prove it (cover up or wear sunscreen, folks!). Little kids like to rise and shine at the crack of dawn, so we took advantage of those early hours and went to the beach before anyone else was there. We had a certain spot at Lighthouse Beach that we claimed as “ours,” visiting just about every day, sometimes twice.
Non-Negotiable: Teach Them to Swim
There was one thing that was not optional: swim lessons. All of my kids had to take them. I have spent several hours a week every year since 1999 at Port Huron’s Sanborn Pool. I’ve watched the lifeguards grow up, get married, and eventually bring their own kids back to the pool for lessons.
Teaching your kids to swim gives you peace of mind and equips them with a life-saving skill they will use for the rest of their lives. Most city recreation departments offer dedicated summer lessons.
Start Planning Now
Day Camps fill up fast. Local organizations like Discovery City, The Athletic Factory, city recreation departments, and others have registration deadlines, so start planning now! Even if you’re committed to a free-range summer, take a look at our Events Calendar now. Spotting free activities ahead of time lets you pivot when the mood strikes—just keep in mind that some free activities still require advance registration to hold your spot.
You’re Covered with BWP
Part of why I created BlueWaterParent.com way back in 2014 was to have single, trusted place for parents, grandparents, and caregivers to see what was going on for families with kids. No pub crawls or craft shows, just kids’ stuff.
I shut the website down for a few years, but I knew I had to get it back up and running when I heard this question from the bleachers at Pine Grove Park while my youngest son was playing Bitty Ball in 2022: “How do you know what’s going on around here? I always find out about the fun things after they happen.” I’m thrilled that Lyndsey is carrying on the daily operations of the website to ensure local families never miss out.
I cherish Blue Water summers, and I hope you can find a little bit of the magic yourself this year. We don’t have control over so many big things going on in the world, but we can control whether our kids learn to swim, if they get to play baseball, and if they know how to build a sandcastle.
See you at the pool…
Story by Jennie McClelland for BlueWaterParent.com.
