Listen. A little hand covered in popsicle juice and sand is turning the lid on a jar.
Look. Fireflies play flashlight tag.
Feel. The grass under your bare feet is cooling. (Smack! Frenzied mosquitoes seek a bedtime snack.)
Smell. Summer’s incense–the sulfurous metallic scent of sparklers sizzle the night air.
Taste. A charred marshmallow deflates spreading sweetness on the tongue.
Whether you write novels, nonfiction, picture books or poetry for children, seize every sense of the summer season. Research can be pure pleasure. Scoop your piggies (aka toes) into the cool sand beneath the sizzling surface of the beach. Build a bonfire and swap your summer stories with friends. And, if you haven’t had a popsicle in a while (aka decades), you’d best snap to it.
Capture childhood memories of the season
- Summer smells like (weather, food, plants, etc.)
- Favorite summer food taste like
- Summer-specific sounds by day/by night
- Summer sights
- Summer feels like ___________ on my skin/my face/my feet.
- Summer water sensory memories (pool, lake, creek, sprinkler, hose, water park)
- Summer night sounds
What long-forgotten memory paid a visit?
As with every season, not all memories are sweet.
There’s sunburn, bug bites, boredom, and harder still, family squabbles, disappointments, sullen babysitters, food insecurity or loneliness.
Collect deeper summer memories with these simple prompts
- My family and I always went to
- Going on a family vacation made me feel
- My family and I never went on vacation because
- Not going on a family vacation made me feel
- I remember the first time I
- When I didn’t have friends to play with, I would
- I felt scared when
- I dreaded it when
- I used to imagine I
- I couldn’t wait until
- Summer break felt like it was ___ months long
- As the end of summer approached, I felt/worried about/looked forward to
My sweet shortcakes, I hope this post sends your Ferris wheel of memories whirling. AND I also hope-hope-hope you’ll share a summer memory with me!
Fireflies in the Garden
Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,
And here on earth come emulating flies,
That though they never equal stars in size,
(And they were never really stars at heart)
Achieve at times a very star-like start.
Only, of course, they can’t sustain the part. ~ Robert Frost
Welcome to Frog on a Dime 
Flashlight tag with fireflies is brilliant.
Oddly, my kids grew up calling them lightning bugs.
Even odder, there are not many states in the US that have them.
When I was a kid the whole neighborhood turned out to play games together all summer — capture the flag was big. So was hide n seek in the shadows of the trees in our yard. I put a tribute to it in my second Ellie book: Ellie’s new in town and gets to know some of the kids before school starts by joining the neighborhood games.
You’re a treasure, Vicky, and so is this prompt-filled post. ❤
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Thank you so much for hopping by, dear Ruth. I can just see you playing with your neighborhood friends. I love that they live on through Ellie.
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Thanks for this fun list of summer prompts. So many memories of childhood and those lazy seemingly endless summer days and nights. One you brought to mind for me was laying on my back in the cool sweet smelling grass, gazing up at the clouds floating by, and finding all sorts of shapes – whales, castles, dragons, birds.
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Ah! What a lovely mental vacation that is to drift back to such a carefree time. The fun thing is, even though we’re all grown up, we can still lay in the grass for some cloud-gazing. (Of course, it’s trickier to get back up compared to being a kid!) Thank you for sharing, Marty.
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One of my memories was how we would trade places with my cousins for a week every summer. My cousin, Sherri, (who was my age), would come to MY house for a week while my sister would go to her house and hang out with Holly (age-matching sister of Sherri’s). After one week, we would switch locations! It was so much fun learning new games and hobbies. Of course, as we got older, we shared secrets about school crushes, how to flirt, and what good girlfriends looked like.
Added bonus….my Uncle Jerry looked just like Elvis and I swore it was him – hiding away from all his fans.
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Thank you, Monica!
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Ah….summer! A time of playfulness and also, heartbreak.
One of my memories was how we would trade places with my cousins for a week every summer. My cousin, Sherri, (who was my age), would come to MY house for a week while my sister would go to her house and hang out with Holly (age-matching sister of Sherri’s). After one week, we would switch locations! It was so much fun learning new games and hobbies. Of course, as we got older, we shared secrets about school crushes, how to flirt, and what good girlfriends looked like.
Added bonus….my Uncle Jerry looked just like Elvis and I swore it was him – hiding away from all his fans.
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What a wonderful memory. Thank you so much for sharing. I used to get to go to my cousin’s house in Portage in the summer. He was a boy, so it wasn’t quite as fun. But I did learn to play with GI Joes!
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Have a fabulous summer!
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You too darlin’ Lauri!
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