Summer themed literacy activities for upper elementary and middle school
By MARISSA DESPINS Updated Oct 10, 2023
Summer is upon us, and for upper elementary and middle school students, it marks a well-deserved break from the rigors of the academic year. While relaxation and fun are essential during this time, it’s also an excellent opportunity to nurture a love for reading and enhance literacy skills. As an educator and a passionate advocate for fostering a lifelong appreciation for literature, I believe that summer themed literacy activities can be both enjoyable and educationally enriching.
Interested in some fun summer themed literacy activities that you can print and use right away? Click on the image or button below to see these fun summer literacy activities in my TPT shop!
For more information about the importance of keeping your learners reading and writing over the summer months, check out this post on preventing summer learning loss.
Summer themed literacy activities
Looking for ways to keep your upper elementary and middle school students engaged during the summer? Look no further! In this blog post, we will be sharing some of the best summer themed literacy activities that are sure to keep your students motivated and excited.
Summer Reading Challenge
A summer reading challenge is a fantastic way to keep your students engaged in reading during the summer months. Create a reading list of books with summer themes and challenge your students to read as many as they can during the break. To make it even more exciting, create a bulletin board display to track their progress and offer rewards for those who read the most books.
Take this activity to the next level with the Summer Reading Challenge product. This product includes reading logs, book lists, bookmarks, and certificates to help motivate your students and keep them on track.
Summer Journaling
Encourage your students to express themselves and develop their writing skills with summer journaling. Ask them to write about their favorite summer memories, create bucket lists for the summer, or describe their dream summer vacation.
With 25 writing prompts and creative journaling pages, the Summer Writing Challenge shown below is the perfect tool to make this activity even more engaging.
Looking for more writing activities to engage your learners? You may want to check out this post featuring fun ways to practice descriptive writing!
Outdoor writing activities
Looking to engage your writers while also getting some much needed sunshine? Outdoor learning provides an opportunity to explore the world around us. It allows to to gain new insights into how we interact with the environment, all while increasing engagement and nurturing curiosity.
Outdoor learning is a huge passion of mine, and I absolutely love finding new and exciting ways to take learning outdoors. The summer themed literacy activities included in the bundle below are high on both rigor and engagement, as students create meaningful pieces of writing while also exploring their out door space.
Check out this fun outdoor writing bundle by clicking here or on the image below. It contains 18 different outdoor writing activities!
Looking for more information on outdoor learning? Check out our complete guide to the benefits of outdoor learning!
Summer Reading Reviews
Book reviews are a great way to add a little writing to your summer literacy plans. After your students have read a book with a summer theme, have them write a book review. They can share their thoughts on the plot, characters, and setting, and even recommend the book to their classmates. Encourage them to use persuasive language to convince others to read the book.
The product below comes with a variety of different book review templates to help make the writing process super easy. The templates are differentiated, making them great for learners from 3-7!
I hope you are able to make use of some of these resources to help make your end of the year literacy planning a bit easier!
If you are interested in some ways to up your personal teaching game over the summer, you may want to check out this post featuring some of our favorite professional development books for teachers.
Looking for more summer themed literacy activities?
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