Pittsburgh families, we’ve reached that moment when there’s just one more month of summer ahead of us. That may not sound like much. But look at it this way: There’s still an ENTIRE MONTH of summer ahead of us.
So there is still time to make sure you visit local attractions (like our region’s many award-winning museums), encourage kids to try building new skills, catch free outdoor movie screenings and do special, summer-only things like joining the Jerome Bettis Summer Reading Challenge, exploring the Phipps Summer Flower Show or getting a frosty treat at an ice cream stand that’s only open from May to September (find some amazing ones right here).
Photo of pool at Sandcastle courtesy of Meg St-Esprit.
BUILD YOUR LIST
With this final month of summer ahead, now is a great time to ask your family members if there’s something they’d really like to do before school starts. You can explore our Big Summer Events Guide or poke around in our public calendar, and also check out our guides to great indoor pools and local outdoor pools. And check out Kidsburgh’s guides to weekend events for families, which are published on Tuesday each week with details about the weekend ahead. (Here is this week’s guide.) Invite all family members add ideas to a list of fun things they might want to do — even the things you may not be able to squeeze in this year (you can start next summer’s list early!). Let everyone voice their interests, including big and small things.
Sometimes we forget to be a tourist in our own city. Is there anywhere in Pittsburgh that your family has never gone (Point State Park, the Mister Rogers statue on the North Side, somewhere else?) but would love to? Are there familiar places you haven’t gone in a while that would be fun to revisit?
Want to do some crafting or art projects at home? We have tons of Maker Monday projects that you can do any day of the week with materials you can get at a dollar store or may have around the house.
Are there new places that have opened that sound particularly fun to someone in your family?
Are there local neighborhoods you’ve wanted to explore? (Check out Kidsburgh’s neighborhood guides, many written by our Youth Reporter team about the neighborhoods where they live.)
What about mini-golf? Or picking wildflowers and fruit at a local farm?
Get some snacks and sit down with a sheet of paper and pen (grownups and kids together, so everyone can voice their interests) and make a list. Some of these ideas might be better for next year. But it’s valuable to discuss them now, so you can put them on a calendar and make a note of planning you’ll need to do in advance — things like saving money or getting tickets. As you make this master list, you might find that several family members love an idea that one person suggests. Or there may be just one person who wants to do a particular thing, so perhaps you’ll do it in honor of their birthday or to celebrate something they’ve accomplished.
Photo courtesy of Cinema in the Park.
Others may involve day trips or an overnight somewhere. (We’ve got guides to great roadtrips you can do on one tank of gas, including Lancaster County, the Erie area, Niagara Falls/Buffalo, the Laurel Highlands, Cleveland, Columbus, and also weekend getaway guides for places like Washington, D.C., and Hershey/Harrisburg.)
Once you’ve got the whole list, start paring down: Draw up a shorter list of the items your family most wants to do during the next four weeks.
Photo courtesy of Destination Cleveland.
CREATING A PLAN
Now it’s time to start scheduling. Figure out when your family has free time available, and then look at the list of things your family most wants to do and start blocking the time on a paper calendar or digital calendar app. (Paper calendars can be fun to hang up in your kitchen and let kids look at them to build reading skills and get excited about upcoming plans without interacting with screens.)
Here’s the key to making this stress-free: Be kind to yourselves. You may not pack everything into summer 2026. But if you approach each season in this intentional way, you can make the most out of this summer and the upcoming fall, winter and spring, too.
For more fun ideas, check out our guides to everything to see and do around Pittsburgh and beyond.