STRENGTHEN | ACTIVITY IDEAS

Activity Ideas

Explore our free curriculum and summer activity guides, filled with for engaging activities for children and teens in out-of-school time programs.

Children using coloring books.

FREE Out-Of-School-Time Curriculum 

Download Mizzen Education, the free out-of-school time app for high-quality lesson plans, activities, and curriculum to use in your afterschool and summer programs. 


Mizzen Education is a new app built with and for afterschool professionals to provide high-quality, engaging learning content to the afterschool field.  The Mizzen team frequently adds new activity playlists and multi-week modules, keeping content fresh and up-to-date. The app’s content focuses on youth learning and well-being and is provided by organizations like Jazz at Lincoln Center, the California Academy of Sciences, After-School All-Stars, OregonAsk and VentureLab. Through support from the Mott Foundation, the app and all of its content are available for FREE to afterschool providers. 

Features Include: 

  • High-quality content from top afterschool curriculum experts. Mizzen offers over 1,000 pieces of content that foster learning and well-being through activities in arts, STEM, literacy, digital media and entrepreneurship. Examples include: 

  • Jazz, Blues and Music from Jazz at Lincoln Center; 

  • Learning Scientific Sketching from California Academy of Sciences; 

  • Making Comics from OregonASK; 

  • Youth Voice from YouthQuest;

  • Intro to Entrepreneurship from VentureLab;

  • Pro Tips & organizational tools that help you hone your skills, address challenges and opportunities, and bring content to life

Colorful circles
Mizzen Education graphic

Features Include:

  • 150 Activities and Challenges (batches of activities will be released every two-weeks) 

  • Organized by four different age groups (5-9) (10-12) (13-15) (16-18) 

  • Adaptable for in-person and virtual instruction, or a hybrid of both, as well as sent as take-home packets 

  • Based in skill building & social emotional learning 

Materials for Professional Development and Enhancing Family Engagement:

  • Webinars 

  • Quick Guides 

  • Feedback Form 

  • Implementation Videos 

Summer Activity Guide

Planning for summer just got a whole lot easier! The Summer Activity Guide is a suite of fun and engaging activities and challenges.  

The Summer Activity Guide provides you with student activities and challenges adapted for in-person and virtual instruction, or a hybrid of both, as well as sent as take-home packets. Over the course of the summer 150 activities will be released in batches, so check back every two weeks to find new and exciting activities to do and share with your students

Colorful Circles

The Summer Activity Guide was developed for the 50 State Afterschool Network with leadership from the Georgia Statewide Afterschool Network with funding support from the Alaska Afterschool Network to engage and support children and youth nationwide.