Great Ideas for Summer Reading

April 24, 2018 by Sarah White Leave a Comment

I hate to admit it, but summer will be here before we know it. My daughter’s school participates in a summer reading challenge, and there is the summer reading program at the local library, too. It’s a good thing she loves to read, but I know a lot of kids need some motivation in order to stick with those reading goals.

The Many Little Joys has a great post on summer reading, with ideas for challenging kids to read more (and different) books, why reading in the summer is so important for kids and how to make it fun.

Her post includes a printable chart they used to challenge her son to read 50 books in a summer.

If you need a reading log instead of a book tracker for older kids, I made a summer reading log printable that I shared at Our Daily Craft a couple of years ago. It has spaces for the date, the book being read, when reading time started and ended and the total for the day or session.

Admittedly we usually just try to keep track of time and not always the book that was being read, but it’s fun to look back at the end of the summer and see all the books you read.

How do you encourage summer reading? I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo: The Many Little Joys.]

Looking for the best tools to help teach your child to read? Explore our specially curated Amazon Idea List featuring top-rated reading products designed to make learning to read fun and effective. From engaging phonics programs to interactive toys and books, we have everything you need to support your child’s reading journey. Visit our list now and discover the best resources to teach your child to read!

You can also see some of our other articles on reading activities and ideas here.

125 more activities to get your child to read.

Next Plan Idea:

Goal Setting for the New School Year

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Shark Week Learning for Kids

Shark Week generally happens in July, but any time is a good time to learn more about sharks.

First, start with some fun whale facts like these from Kids Craft Room. Here I learned about the dwarf lantern shark, which is the smallest shark and only grows to about 6-8 inches (about 15-20 cm) long. It also emits light. How cool is that?

Natural Beach Living has some great printable shark information guides, where kids can learn about different kinds of sharks, match the facts to the pictures, or print out doubles and do a shark memory game.

Living Life an Learning has some great shark activity pages including the parts of a shark, types of sharks, a crossword puzzle and more. Also check out their parts of a shark and word scramble download, and a life cycle worksheet.

Learn about how sharks float with this great activity from JDaniel4’s Mom.

Need more facts about sharks? This fact pact from The WOLFe PACK on Teacher Pay Teachers includes fact sheets, a printable flip book, informational text, vocabulary, comprehension questions and more.

Living Montessori Now has a great collection of shark themed activities with a Montessori inspired twist. You’ll find a shark roll and cover, shark phonics and lots more shark activities Deb has collected from all over the Internet.

Remember the “Sharknado” movie? A Few Shortcuts turned the combination of sharks and tornadoes into a fun science activity. You’ll need a bottle connector for this project but otherwise should have everything you need on hand. Use their template to make your sharks out of aluminum foil. So fun!

You can also do some shark themed coloring with these coloring pages from Encouraging Moms at Home. Or make a cool 3D shark with this template from korkotak. And there are tons of different shark crafts collected in this post from Kids Activities Blog.

Next Plan Idea:

Have you read?

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