Fun Summer Reading Logs and Challenges for Kids

Reading regularly during the summer is a great way to keep kids on track with their learning, and it’s just a fun thing for people of all ages to do, especially when the weather doesn’t cooperate with outdoor activities.

For kids who need a little extra motivation to do their daily pages, check out these reading challenges and trackers that make reading more of a game.

Everyday Reading has several great printable coloring play mat reading challenges (designed by Hadley Designs). Shown here is the Dive into Reading challenge, which includes things like reading a book to a pet or stuffed animal, reading a book that’s cover is your favorite color, plus shells to color in on days you read. There are also ones with a summer camp theme and a summer travel theme.

Fuzzy Mama has cute summer reading printables that include a reading bingo page and a bucket list that’s filled out with things like reading different genres of books, a book recommended by a teacher and reading in your backyard. There’s also a list kids can fill out themselves to check off reads.

Rock Your Homeschool has a great summer reading planning pack for kids of all ages, with book recommendations, reading bingo cards and reading logs.

I also love color in bookmarks as a way to track progress, like these from Paper Trail Design, where you can color in stars or books as you read. Or try the ones from We Are Teachers, which has a reading checklist but also bookmarks with challenges on them you can color as you complete them.

For kids who need a little extra motivation, One Lovely Life suggests tracking reading (by time or books read) and offering prizes like cooking together, extra screen time or letting the kid pick the game for game night. The trick here is the rewards need to be things you’d want to do anyway.

And be sure to check out my previous posts on summer reading bingo and more summer reading printables for kids. Happy reading!

Kids all seem to go through a phase of loving trivia, and if you’ve got kids who want to know about the tallest, biggest and weirdest things in nature, they’ll enjoy the book Once in a Blue Moon by Emily Hawkins.

The book explores wonders of astronomy, meteorology, big trees, weird animals, volcanoes and more to show off the rarest events and phenomena in the natural world.

Kids ages 7-10 will learn about the lake (Lake Hillier, on an island off Australia) that has water that’s bubblegum pink, the world’s deepst came (Veryovkina Cave in the country of Georgia) and the world’s biggest tree, a banyan in southeast India with a canopy that covers more than five acres!

Readers will learn what a blue moon is, how supernovas happen and about Haley’s comet and solar eclipses, among other space-related phenomena. Closer to home they’ll learn about stinky flowers, bleeding trees, glowing fungi and pizzly bears.

There’s content about times when it’s rained frogs (and when frogs have exploded en masse), when snow made giant snowballs all by itself and how clouds stack on themselves like pancakes. The book also explores ball lightning, sun dogs, St. Elmo’s fire and more.

I love books like this and I know kids do, too. There’s so much weird and wonderful about our world and even as adults we don’t know about all of these things. I found it fun to learn, for example, that there’s a volcano on the island of Java that not only sends out blue flames from vents near its crater, it’s also home to an acidic lake.

Illustrations by Vlad Stankovic illuminate these weird natural wonders and are sure to get kids interested in learning more about some of these remarkable animals, plants, rock formations and more.

About the book: 80 pages, hardcover. Published 2026 by Wide Eyed Editions. Suggested retail price $30.

Have you read?

Leave a Reply