If you want some fun filled learning activities to keep your kiddo’s academic skills fresh all summer long, you’ve come to the right place! Below are my summertime lesson plans, filled with literacy, math, science and art ideas all based around a fun, summery theme! Don’t forget to check out the toddler summertime play page for even more boredom busters like art and sensory play you can use with kids age 1-5 all summer long!
We All Scream for Ice Cream
Summer is almost here (and summer vacation is definitely in full swing!) so what better theme than the most yummy of all cold treats- ice cream! Ice cream is one of my favorite desserts, and of course both kiddos love it too! Plus it’s just so darn cute with the fun colors and cones and…
Sunshine and Water
The weather is getting hot, hot, hot and it’s the perfect time for something I think all kids love- water play! This week’s activities all have to do with fun in the sun (and fun in the water!) Don’t forget to check out the toddler page for some soggy sensory play activities like a DIY…
Freedom and Justice for ALL
The 4th of July is this Saturday and what a perfect opportunity to teach our children a little bit about our nation and the wonderful variety of people who live here! Sometimes our country can seem like it’s one huge mess with the hate and division and refusal to listen to other’s opinions we see…
Learning- with a Little Pixie Dust
Disney World is definitely my favorite place on the planet! There’s nothing quite like the feeling you get walking through the gate and seeing Cinderella’s castle at the end of Main Street USA. Since Disney has been closed due to COVID, we’ve been looking for ways to add a little Disney magic to our days…
Learning like Busy Bees!
Even though bees can strike fear into the hearts of young and old alike, they’re such fascinating creatures- and are really kind of cute (at a distance!)! They’re also vitally important to the life of plants (which give us oxygen and food) so I thought we’d take a week to pay tribute to these fuzzy…
The Awesome Ocean
The beach has always been one of my favorite places to be! The soothing sound of the waves, playing in the water, reading on the beach, building sand castles with my kids, collecting shells- there’s just so much to do! Since it’s summer I thought this would be a perfect learning theme! We kicked off…
Welcome to Hogwarts
Harry Potter turns 40 on July 31st (the character, not the book series- we’re not THAT old yet folks!) so I figured this was the perfect opportunity to do some magical learning with my boys to celebrate! I had to get pretty creative since most of the learning ideas centering around HP are for middle…
Learning with the Snow Queen
It’s the smack middle of summer and it is HOT, so what better way to cool off than with some icy cold learning from Frozen! Both Frozen movies are amazing- the music, the animation, the story lines- it’s no wonder that kids (and adults) everywhere love them, so this week I turned to Elsa, Anna,…
It’s a Bad Week to be a Seal…
So Discovery Channel’s “Shark Week” starts this Sunday and my little is sort of obsessed with the creatures, so I thought it would be perfect timing to do some shark themed learning! It all started when he saw “Shark Boy and Lava Girl” a few weeks ago, and since then has morphed into a fascination…
Jungle Explorers!
My preschooler recently saw Disney’s “The Jungle Book” and pretended he was Mowgli for two weeks straight, so when I asked him what he wanted to learn about it made sense that he chose the jungle. A jungle is technically a very dense, usually tropical forest- but it isn’t always rainy. Since rainforests can also…
Heihei- It’s Summer!
Being a huge Disney fan, I continue to keep up with all the animated hits (even as an adult) and I have to say, Moana is definitely a modern classic! You’ve got a strong female lead, lots of action and oh my gosh the water! Am I right? They did such an amazing job animating…
Arrrrgh You Ready to Learn?
My preschooler has loved pirates ever since we took him on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney World when he was two! We originally got a fast pass for the Winnie the Pooh ride, but I guess it was destiny that we went on Pirates instead because Pooh broke down! After his Disney…
Vacay in the Sunshine State
Beautiful beaches, Disney World, Kennedy Space Center, Everglade airboat rides, and even real live mermaids- Florida is definitely the place to be for summer vacation so I thought it would be fun to take a virtual trip around the sunshine state with a week of Florida themed activities! Buckle up as we travel from Cape…
Summertime- and the Livin’s Easy
That song is just the perfect summer jam isn’t it? Brings me straight back to my flag twirling days in the JMU Marching Royal Dukes! Now that the hottest season is upon us, I figured it was time to break out all the quintessential summertime activities- lemonade, watermelon, and of course the 4th of July.…
Heroes Unite!
Pretty much every kid is into super heroes of some sort at one time or another- I loved the Ninja Turtles as a kid (even though the first time I heard of them I thought they were a real group of teenaged ninjas who dressed up as turtles and I was SO confused! LOL) My…
Let’s Build
Does your little love Legos? Then this week they’re going to be super pumped because all of our activities are built (haha see what I did there?) around these versatile little blocks of creativity! There are so many fun things you can do with these little guys other than just building (although we’ll be doing…
Gone Fishin’
My husband has been an avid fisherman since he was a kid- as is his dad- so it’s only logical that both our littles love fishing too! It definitely is a great hands on lesson in patience paying off (unless your me and you never catch anything! LoL) and the boys get so excited when…
Go for the Gold
The summer Olympics are finally here! I love watching the games on TV- gymnastics, diving, swimming, running- it’s all super exciting and MAN are those men and women talented! I was so sad last year when they got canceled because of Covid I actually organized a Funk Family Olympics at our house with bucket filling,…
Rainbow Fish Book Study
If you haven’t heard of it, “The Rainbow Fish” is a best selling book with an adorable message- sharing and friendship are worth more than possessions and outward appearance. I always read this story to my students the first day of school, discussed how important sharing and kindness are in our classroom and the world,…
Lights, Camera, Action!
Who doesn’t love a good movie? I thought a special week of sweet movies with good lessons would be a fun way to end the summer before we dive back into our full on school schedule (for more info on what we do daily in addition to my themed plans, check out my posts Preschool…
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