Fun Ways to Encourage Summer Learning
School’s out for summer!
You want to avoid the summer slide, but you also want to have a super fun summer.
Fun summer learning activities to the rescue!
Fun Summer Learning
The best way to keep learning all summer is to make it fun.
You don’t even need to tell your kids they are learning!
Call these activities Boredom Busters, and let the fun begin!
This article contains affiliate links to things that you might like.
Fun Learning Activities for Kids
We have activities to practice all the skills (and learn some new things in the process!).
GeoBoards
Pegboard plus colored rubber bands equals math magic.
Even adults love to play with GeoBoards.
Pattern Blocks
You can make all kinds of crazy and beautiful patterns with pattern blocks.
These geometric wonders will teach kids about spatial relationships and common polygons.
Linking Cubes
My son loved these snap linking cubes and played with them for years.
You can use them for base 10 counting, teaching patterns, and sorting (oh yeah, and he made lots of swords from them).
Mazes
You need to strengthen the fine motor coordination needed for handwriting, but you can do that with mazes!
Word Searches
Try some fun word search summer printables to keep vocab in mind!
Jokes, Weird Facts, and Silly Sentences Handwriting
Copy a joke a day and then try it out on your friends and family?
Yes, please!
Museum Pass
Get a summer pass to your local children’s, art, or science museum.
Don’t forget the zoo and aquarium!
You can also take a virtual field trip if a real one is not feasible.
Taste the World
Cook recipes from other countries (you can watch a documentary on that country too for extra learning).
Or order snack boxes from around the world through Universal Yums.
PostCards
Writing postcards is a simple, heartfelt way to practice handwriting and composition.
Grandma will love this!
Nature Journal
Slow down and take a nature walk with a journal.
Press leaves, sketch flowers, compose poems–let nature inspire you as you contemplate its beauty. Download a FREE Nature Journal here!
AudioBooks
Are you going on a summer road trip?
Don’t forget the audiobook! Audiobooks can be wonderful during playtime as well.
Legos + Harry Potter Audiobook = a quiet hour for mom.
Magazine Subscriptions
Even with the advance of technology, you still get a zing when you get mail.
Subscribe your child to a magazine this summer.
Here are classic favorites: Cricket, Time for Kids, National Geographic Kids, and Highlights.
Geocaching
If you like to trail blaze and hunt for treasure, you will love geocaching.
Your kids will learn to navigate in the process, all while being immersed in nature.
Plant a Garden
Sure, you can read about plants in a book, but nothing beats the real thing.
Don’t have room for a garden outside?
Buy a tabletop AeroGarden.
Summer Reading
With fun incentives and entertaining programming, your local library’s summer reading program is a great way to get your child in a book this summer.
KiwiCo
Do you have a budding engineer who loves to tinker and build?
KiwiCo has a subscription service by age and ability: a ready-to-assemble, super cool project arrives at
your door every month!
Educational Board Games
Board games aren’t just fun–they’re educational!
Try Monopoly and Monopoly Jr., Robot Turtles, Math Rush, Money Bags, The Scrambled States of America, Timeline Inventions, and Cardline Dinosaurs to name a few. Here are some of our favorites.
Try a Recipe
Whether you go for something simple like homemade trail mix or a crafty recipe like this DIY hand scrub, following a recipe and directions can be a great learning opportunity for kids of all ages!
Online Summer Learning Activities
Scratch
The geniuses at MIT developed a program to introduce kids to coding in a fun and intuitive way.
Scratch teaches coding, animations, and game design.
CodeMonkey
The monkey really wants the banana in CodeMonkey, but you need to experiment with computer code to get him there!
Epic
The online reading platform Epic has hundreds of thousands of titles, and you can track the minutes your child reads each day. Read for FREE on Epic!
NASA Kids Club
Call all space invaders!
NASA Kids Club is a way for kids to play online games to learn about NASA and its missions.
National Geographic for Kids
A companion to its magazine, National Geographic for Kids has games and videos about places and animals that will amuse and delight!
Boom Cards
Boom cards are fun and interactive.
They make learning enjoyable (and trackable for you as a parent). Sign up for a FREE starter account.
Fun Learning Activities for the Summer
Your child need not backslide this summer.
Keep learning fresh and fun with these summer learning activities for kids.