Top 10 Lesson Plans to Promote Summer Learning

1. Capitalize on traveling - Summer travel can provide a way to infuse a little reading, writing, and arithmetic into the mix. Kids can create a travel journal by writing about a trip they took during the summer. Better still, prompt them at the end of the school year to take a journal on their summer trips and write about their adventures as they are happening. Whether it's a trip to visit grandma, or a cross country journey, young writers don't have to go a long distance to get the creativity flowing. Suggest they include pictures and/or videos. For some good ideas about how to complete such a project, take a look at this lesson plan.

2. Sketching and Drawing - With more time to spare, summer can be a great time for honing art skills. Sketching can be a good way to document one's summer vacation, and also get some drawing practice. Great subjects can be found everywhere. At a local park, there are subjects ranging from a tree, to the swingset, to the people around them. A trip to the zoo offers the chance to sketch a variety of animals. The idea is to use art as a way to document their experiences, relax, and possibly even express their feelings. For some suggestions regarding sketching and drawing, try this lesson. 

3. Gardening - It's always a good time to plant some seeds and watch them grow. With long summer days, kids have more time and energy to spend some gardening, as well as eating the fruits of their labor. Any gardening experience involves math (laying out the beds), science (the understanding of plant growth), and creativity (coming up with a way to document your progress). Students can keep a gardening journal, or take pictures each step of the way. For garden tips for your region, try this Gardening lesson plan.

4. Science Experiments - There's something about conducting science experiments at home that makes kids enjoy them even more then they would in the classroom. Experiments can be conducted in the kitchen, in the garage, in the yard, or any other room that works with the experiment parameters. For instance, young children love to put together a whole variety of spices, flour, and liquid to come up with just the right combination. Tap into this love by finding some science experiments where they can do just that. To help you get started, here are some ideas for food-based experiments.

5. Travel Brochure - Another way get kids reading and writing this summer is to get them interested in making a travel brochure. They can read a book and then make a travel brochure about the place where the story is set. A brochure can also be made for places they visit while they are on a trip. Even making a brochure about a place they want to visit can be engaging. Take a look at this lesson for some ideas on how to make this project come to life.

6. Explore a new genre - This one might be a little harder to convince kids to try. However, I know if they do, they will enjoy themselves. Suggest that your students explore a new genre of reading material, or take a closer look at a familiar one. Lately, fantasy has become a popular genre due to Harry Potter and the Lord of the Ring series. Kids can take a look at the characters in books and movies within the same genre and make comparisons. They can do this for any genre. Thinking outside the box will reward the clever investigator. For instance, someone might really enjoy comparing his favorite Discovery Channel series (or one episode) to a book on the same subject. Here is a plan that might give you some good ideas on how to  make discovering a new genre a fun way to learn. 

7. Spelling - A boring car trip can be a little more interesting when there are games involved. Spelling games can be a great way to while away the time. For a list of ideas, try this lesson called Spelling, or click on this link to find a list of spelling lesson plans that you can adapt for travel time. Apps for tablets are a great resource for fun spelling games; Words with Friends is just the tip of the iceberg! 

8. Collecting - Take a closer look at the world this summer. Kids can further their scientific investigations by looking differently at the world around them. If you are near a beach, they can look  into tide pools and write about what they see. No beach? No problem! Parks, forests, nature walks, even neighborhoods have plenty of plants for kids to notice and identify. They can either take specimens home as they build collections, or they can take pictures of various plants and create a pictorial collection. Animal collections obviously need to be pictorial, but they are still fun to compile. With animals, kids can take pictures of squirrels, birds, and other wildlife to identify them. Then, they can expand their collections by taking pictures of the animals in various settings and engaged in different activities. For example, take a picture of a fox squirrel, identify it, and then later add pictures of a fox squirrel climbing a tree, or a fox squirrel eating a nut. Here is a good lesson to get kids started with collecting and classifying. 

9. Cooking - Keep your students' classroom skills sharp this summer by suggesting that they spend some time cooking. In order to cook, they will need to use measurement skills, reading skills, and maybe even some chemistry skills. This resource has numerous ideas for cooking with kids. Extend learning by having kids plan a family dinner menu. Then, they can go to the store with an adult to buy the necessary items. This means they will need to look at their recipes, figure out what they need, what they have available, and what they need to buy. Estimation skills are also used in order to calculate how much money they need. Bon Appetite! 

10. Make a Documentary - And last, but not least, kids can use their video cameras, phones or other equipment to make a documentary on their summer experiences. They can document a specific event, or their entire summer. An activity like this encourages writing (script), planning (shooting and ideas), and technology (filming and editing). The project doesn't have to be about a visit to Europe, it can be about an everyday activity. Here is a lesson plan with some basic ideas and instructions. Today's youth also love to make music videos, so keep this in mind for reluctant participants.