8 Ways to Keep Kids Learning Over the Summer

After a roller-coaster school year, so many people need a refreshing summer break! But how do we enjoy these sunnier days without the dreaded summer slide and learning loss for kids? This post shares 8 ways to keep kids learning over the summer.

Plus you can grab free summer reading activities for home or summer school. 📚 🙌

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How Can I Continue the Learning for Summer?

Yes, we all need downtime, play, and rest. But you don’t want two months to go by with kids not being engaged with some type of learning.

So, how in the world do we continue learning for the summer even if your kiddos aren’t in summer school? Well, that’s what I’m here to share with you teacher (and parent) friend!

Not only are we going to dive into some practical ideas, but we’re also going to discuss ways to make summer learning fun. The tips mentioned here work well for:

• babysitters and nannies
  
  
• tutors and summer school teachers
  
  
• parents
  
  
• homeschooling co-op groups
  
  
• and librarians

Without further ado, let’s crank up that summer learning joy!

Use Summer Reading Bookmarks

It probably isn’t a surprise that the top tip would relate to reading. If you don’t do anything else to keep kids learning over the summer, you gotta get them reading!

Reading does wonders to keep kids’ brains elastic and strong, but the lack of reading can be deterimental.

But instead of just hammering the idea of read, read, read–I want to offer a unique twist to make summer reading fun: use easy-to-complete summer reading challenges.

I designed summer reading bookmarks that have nine weeks of reading challenges for students to complete. Each time they read something, they color in that “challenge” on their bookmark.

Once they finish every challenge, you can give them a cool summer reading certificate, which come included with the bookmarks, as swag to show off their hard work!

Here’s why this reading approach works for the summer:

• Kids can read a variety of different texts due to the diversity of reading challenges.
  
  
• They have something fun to look forward to as a reward.
  
  
• It combines an element of art and reading.
  
  
• New challenges each week give them new reasons to read.
  
  
• They are going to need a bookmark anyway! 😆
  

You can grab 3 weeks of FREE reading challenges here 👇

Play Family Board Games

Who says learning has to be a pencil and paper activity? One of my favorite ways to keep kids engaged with learning is by using different board games at home.

In fact, I even recommend this to my teacher friends as students return to school and are learning procedures.

An example of a neat game to play for summer learning is Headbadz. Every player puts a band around their head and inserts a card in the front of the headband.

The player has to guess what’s on their card by listening to other players give clues or reenactments of that item.

This is one of my absolute favorite games for improving vocabulary and communication skills!

Get Kids Involved with Shopping

The third easy way to keep kids learning over the summer is to include them in with your shopping routines. Here are different parts of the “shopping” process that kids can help with:

• Creating a meal based on the budget you give them. (Writing & Math Skills)
  
  
• Reading through sales ads to find the best prices for items on your shopping list. (Reading & Math Skills)
  
  
• Writing the shopping list for you as you call out items to them. (Writing skills)
  
  
• As you shop in the store, have kids keep a running total of what’s going in the buggy. (Math Skills)
  
  
• If you use apps like Ibotta (my favorite!!) and Wal-Mart grocery shopping, have kids go through the apps to select coupons or put items in the “cart” for you. (Digital Literacy & Reading Skills)
  
  
  

I’m sure you can be creative and tweak this activity to make it fit your kid. Not only is this a way to keep kids’ brain engaged with something productive in summer, but it will also help you save time!

Go Outside and Play

Raise your hand if you want kids cooped up inside in front of devices all day for 2 months straight? 😵‍💫 I didn’t think so. Now that many places are opening back up throughout America, and people are getting vaccinated, let the kids explore!

This summer engagement tip doesn’t need an agenda or plan other than to get outdoors. But if you want to spice things up, here are free and easy ways to do it:

• Go on a nature walk and collect interesting things that you find.
  
  
• Play sports with other kids at the park.
  
  
• Have at home STEAM or science experiments. (Hello Coca-Cola and Mentos STEM projects!)
  

If you don’t have nice public parks or attractive outdoor spaces near you, these might be some helpful alternatives:

• Set up a camping tent on the roof of your apartment building (if it’s available) or on your porch.
  
  
• Have a scavenger hunt in your yard.

Play is essential to learning for all of us, especially kids. This is also something to really keep in mind if you’re teaching summer school for younger kids. Even though they need intervention to reinforce learning, play still helps them enjoy their summer break while filling in those learning gaps. So, let them out to run, explore, and PLAY!

Use the Osmo Learning Sets

Even though it may seem like kids are sick of devices after distance learning all year, it could just be the type of virtual activities that bores them.

I absolutely LOVE the Osmo collection and have used it with my son for years! These are coding, robotics, and art activities that work with an iPad. (PS-I’m not getting paid by Osmo to talk about these, though I would if they ever offer!)

I recommend these for summer learning because they’re highly engaging and have extra book lessons you can use for free.

Plus, you’re gonna need something interesting to use for rainy days during the summer!

Incorporate Art and Music Activities at Home

Sadly, when school budgets get cut, the arts programs are often the first to go bye-bye. This is such a shame considering that Art and Music do wonders for the brain!

So, my sixth way to keep kids learning over the summer is to give them chances to make art and music.

Just like with outside play time, you don’t have to make this legalistic and too structured. Of course, you want things to be organized, especially with art and crafts like painting.

For my son, his Art teacher decided to end the school year by teaching the 6th graders how to crochet. It surprised my son to find out how relaxing this craft is, and he wanted to continue learning this skill for the summer.

I’m thrilled because it gets him away from Minecraft and it gives me another reason to head to Michaels! (As if I really need another reason. 🙃)

Combine Movies with Writing

Let’s face it: summer and movies go together like peanut butter and jelly. Yet, there are times when I want to make movie time a little more mentally engaging—I can’t help it, I’m such a teacher!

To do this, I recommend giving kids their own movie review sheet. ⬇️

Click either image to see these summer learning favorites!

You can turn these sheets into a summer booklet and select certain movies for kids to rate and write a review. This keeps the movie fun going for summer, but it also keeps the writing practice going for summer too.

I have some templates available already in my summer enrichment activities set. This video gives a brief preview. You can check them out by clicking HERE.

Participate in Your Local Public Library Events

The final way to prevent summer learning loss is to participate in your local public library events for kids. Many public libraries have story time, group STEM projects, summer reading programs and more.

These can be fun for kids of all ages because these events usually tailor the activity to different age groups.

If your local library doesn’t offer engaging activities, check out these organizations for their summer programs:

• The Boys and Girls Club
  
  
• The Salvation Army / Kroc Center
  
  
• YMCA
  
  
• Barnes & Noble
  
  
• 2nd & Charles
  
  
• Local churches with camps and Vacation Bible School
  

BONUS Summer Learning Activity — Create a Camping Classroom Theme

Most of these ideas engage kids with learning at home, but what about summer camp or summer school? If you want a way to keep kids excited about learning, consider a camping classroom transformation. These are perfect to make your summer learning space seem much cooler and fun for kids. This detailed guide helps you get the ball rolling on your camping wonderland!

More Resources to Keep Kids Learning This Summer

Hopefully something from list sparked an aha idea for you! Student learning over the summer doesn’t have to be complicated or require long hours of planning.

A little goes a long way! The same is true for affordability. Summer learning for kids doesn’t have to be expensive either.

In fact, this detailed post shows parents how to put together a summer learning plan that prevents the summer slide:

Check out these free and low-cost educational summer activities for kids:

• Summer Nonfiction Reading Passages for 4th & 5th Grade
  
  
• Literacy Review Builders for 3rd Graders
  
  
• Easy Print and Go Math Worksheets for 2nd & 3rd Grade
  

And Don’t Forget Your FREE Summer Reading Challenges

Of course, you can’t leave behind your free summer reading bookmarks. Not only will these make summer reading fun, but it’ll give fresh ideas for reading.

Here you go friends! Happy Summer 🌞