Simple Literary Activities for Summer (That Kids Actually Love)
It’s Memorial Day Weekend, which means it is the unofficial start of summer. The pools are open, the preschools have closed, and if you’re a stay at home mom like me, you suddenly find yourself at home with the kids all day again. Gone is the structure of school drop offs and learning from their teachers. Lucky for you, I spent nine years teaching little kids, so I am passing along my top ten literary activities for kids this summer. Please share them with anyone you know who might be looking for ways to have a more bookish and elevated summer with their kids!
Make weekly trips to the library…and pick a theme each time.
I know, I know. Going to the library every week seems obvious. The part that might not be obvious is having a plan for the books ahead of time. Now, I am a HUGE proponent of reader’s choice. I don’t believe anyone should decide what you can and can’t read or have access to. I do, however, believe that little ones need guidance. I let my girls choose any books they want off the shelves at the library, but I do flip through them before we come home to ensure they are suitable. I also make sure that I choose some myself for our checkout pile. This way, I know we will read about the themes or topics I want to explore with them that week, and we also have extra books they enjoy. This system worked great for us last summer, so I plan to continue using it this year. I am also working on a Dogwoods and Dumbbells Summer guide that will do all the theme and book planning for you. More to come!
Make alphabet, phonics, and sight word learning ACTIVE.
Kids don’t hate learning. They hate boring. And they hate hard. So, why don’t we take the things we know they need to work on (learning their letters, learning letter sounds, recognizing sight words more quickly, etc.) and turn them into games? I promise you they will love it. There are plenty of great games already made that you can purchase. I wrote blog posts about this including links last year here and here. But you don’t have to buy any premade games to have fun with your kids. Sometimes the best games are the homemade kind—use chalk to draw letters on your driveway, then have your kids jump to the letter you call out. Use a fly swatter or a spatula to smack the letter or word card you call out to them. Don’t let them jump into the pool until the spell a word for you. Or hold them in the pool and have them spell a word. Did they get it wrong? Dunk them!
Get crafty. Yes, even with the boys.
Crafts are an easy and fun way to supplement story time. Last summer my girls and I made sponge paint and aluminum foil Rainbow Fish to kick off our summer of reading. This summer, I’m working on creating weekly reading lists and craft connections to share right here on the blog. They are free, simple to follow, and mostly use materials you already have lying around the house. You can find some craft ideas already posted on the blog on the Learning page. Stay tuned for the Dogwoods and Dumbbells Summer guide if you don’t have time to do the research and planning yourself!
Have Act It Out storytime.
Reading stories together is wonderful, but sometimes you need to mix it up. Some kids love curling up and getting cozy with a good book. Others just want to move. For the movers, acting out stories together can be a great way to support their love of reading. You can either read the story first, then go back and act out each page, or you can just act out the story as you go. My kids also love “building” stories together on car rides. One person starts the story, then says someone else’s name. That person has to pick up where they left off and so on until the story is finished. In our case, that’s usually when one of my girls decides that a monster will come along and eat everyone. “And everyone dies. The end.”
Have author and illustrator breakfasts or dinners.
Writing and illustrating are arts that are made to be shared. If your kids are taking the time to write or illustrate stories, you have to make sure you take time to have everyone listen to them, too. In our family, this makes an excellent breakfast activity. If someone worked on a story the day or week before, they can read it to us (with words or just talking about the pictures) while everyone else eats breakfast. If your kids are open to feedback, this can also be a great way to encourage using “I liked” and “I wonder” statements after the story. These can help them get stronger at writing as the summer goes on.
Use those workbooks.
The summer slide is real, my friends. One of the best ways to avoid that learning loss is with a great grade-level or learning-level appropriate workbook. I have found that the Summer Bridge series is consistently strong, but there are many great ones to choose from. 1-2 pages a day is plenty if your kids don’t love them. I say IF your kids don’t love them because I have a workbook queen on my hands who enjoys flying through five a summer if I let her. This year, I’m planning to incorporate some personal research projects into her learning to keep her engaged while my other daughter works at a more normal pace through her workbook.
Travel the world…through your books!
Before I had kids, I travelled a lot more than I do now. If you are able to travel internationally with your kids, more power to you! But if you find yourself longing for those international trips and stuck at home, don’t forget that books can take you anywhere. Wouldn’t it be fun to travel around the world with your kids through books? Couldn’t that prepare them for future real life travel? One of my friends traveled around the world through cooking with her daughter during the COVID lockdown, and she has since created and published a cookbook about their culinary adventures. I was so inspired by her story that I plan to incorporate some international travel themes into my Dogwoods and Dumbbells Summer guide, as well. This is a great opportunity to bring the learning out into your local community, too. Read about ancient Greece, read about modern Greece, then take those kids to a Greek restaurant! I promise you it will help them build their background knowledge and make connections from their learning to the world around them.
Have weekly field trips related to your learning.
These field trips could be local restaurants, museums, farms, or anywhere else you can think of. Many of my Learning blog posts from the last year feature book-related field trips I took my girls on. I will continue to post about these as we go on learning adventures this summer. We read Miss Rumphius and went to River Farm to explore their gardens. We read The Rainbow Fish and Brave Every Day and made a family trip to the aquarium. Family field trips might sound exhausting, but I promise you they are SO worth it. Time them around snacks and any needed naps or rest times, and you will be creating family summer magic every week.
Connect family movie nights to the books you read.
This year I started implementing family movie and pizza nights on Fridays. I love to cook for my family, but by Friday I am exhausted. Knowing that I can throw together a fresh salad and (usually frozen) pizza gives me something to look forward to after a long week of active time with my kids. This year, I’m hoping to encourage more literature-related movie choices. Going to a baseball game that week? Read some of my baseball book picks and watch Angels in the Outfield. Doing the aquarium adventure? Finding Nemo and Finding Dory are both great options. I will be including family movie night recommendations in the Dogwoods and Dumbbells Summer Guide, as well.
Make sure your kids see YOU enjoying your own books.
Moms can get overlooked. We sometimes overlook ourselves. You must. not. do. this. Schedule time every day for your own learning and literary enjoyment. We have a daily quiet time in our house when my kids know that I am reading and working on my writing. As my girls get older, our rest time has turned to quiet time. I know this summer will be a bit different than last, and that trend will continue each year. I don’t know exactly what this will look like for us this year, but I do know that we will have at least 30 minutes (and ideally an hour) of scheduled quiet time so that I can practice what I preach and read for enjoyment. I will be including a moms reading guide with suggested books including a mix of new releases and older books that I love in the Dogwoods and Dumbbells Summer Guide. I got you, mama!
I hope this summer finds you and your kids reading great literature, learning through play and exploration, and living that educated and elevated life. Cheers to the start of our best summer yet!
