summer activities Archives - Teacher's Brain

How to Prevent the Summer Slide in Elementary Students

June 6, 2025 teachersbrain Teaching Tips

The countdown to summer is on! While students (and let’s be honest—teachers!) are excited for a break, we also know how important it is to keep young minds active during the summer months.

Without regular practice, students can lose some of the valuable skills they gained during the school year. This learning loss, often called the “summer slide”, can make the transition into the next grade level more difficult for both students and teachers.

The good news? With just a little review each week, students can retain what they’ve learned and stay on track for success.

Here are a few simple ways to help prevent the summer slide:

1. Encourage Real-Life Learning

Summer is the perfect time for hands-on learning! Encourage families to involve their children in everyday activities like cooking, gardening, or grocery shopping. Measuring ingredients, counting items, and reading labels all build real-world math and literacy skills.

2. Promote Daily Reading

A little reading goes a long way. Help families set up a simple routine because just 10–15 minutes of reading each day makes a big difference. Suggest fun options like library trips, reading challenges, or themed book lists to keep things fresh.

3. Send Home Engaging Practice Packs

One of the easiest ways to help students stay sharp is to send home an end-of-year review packet. These Summer Review Packets for elementary students are filled with quick, engaging activities that reinforce key math and literacy skills.

Each packet is:
✅ Grade-level specific
✅ Easy to print and send home
✅ Designed for independent work- perfect for families!

summer packets to prevent the summer slide

They also include a variety of fun formats like cut-and-paste pages, reading passages, number sense review, and writing prompts to keep students interested while they review.

4. Make It a Challenge

Turn summer review into a game! Encourage students to complete a certain number of pages per week or create a summer learning bingo board. You could even offer a small prize if they bring their completed packet back in the fall.

Summer doesn’t have to mean sliding backward. With the right tools and a little encouragement, your students can hold onto everything they’ve learned and come back ready to learn more.

🎉 Want to make it easy? Grab the Summer Review Packet Bundle here

For more summer activities, check out my post here!

4 Engaging Elementary Summer Activities and Resources

May 17, 2024 teachersbrain Classroom Behavior Management, Classroom Decor, Teaching Tips

Summer is almost here! Are you ready?

If you’re an elementary teacher looking for engaging and educational resources to keep your students learning over the summer, you’re in the right place.

Whether you’re looking for summer packets to prevent the summer slide, needing creative writing prompts, planning out classroom jobs, or brainstorming a fun and summer-tastic bulletin board, these resources have you covered!

Each tool is designed to be user-friendly, interactive, and aligned with educational standards, ensuring a smooth and productive summer for your students- and you!

Check out these fantastic summer activities for kids to keep the summer slide at bay and make learning FUN all summer long!

Summer Packets

These comprehensive print and go summer packets are perfect for keeping students engaged and learning over the break. The bundle includes seven packets for Pre-K through 5th Grade, each designed to prepare students for the next grade level while reviewing key skills aligned with Common Core Standards. Activities include both written and physical tasks that parents can easily do with their children, making these packets ideal for summer school reviews to prevent the summer slide. Each packet includes standard numbers for additional online resources and supports a blend of oral and physical activities.

Get a free sample here!

Summer Would You Rather Writing Activity

Make writing fun and interactive with the Summer Would You Rather Writing Activity! This download includes 53 colorful, summer-themed Google Slides with prompts that serve as great conversation starters, ice breakers, or writing exercises. The interactive slides allow students to use a moveable highlighter to indicate their choices, making it suitable for both virtual and in-person teaching. The set also includes digital and printable writing prompt papers, and black-and-white slides for handwriting practice, ensuring that students remain engaged and enjoy writing throughout the summer.

Classroom Jobs

Streamline classroom job assignments and transitions with this editable PowerPoint tool. With 52 editable slides, this resource provides black-and-white cards, both with and without images, suitable for intermediate or primary classrooms. The cards cover a wide range of classroom jobs such as Line Leader, Greeter, Pet Care, and many more. It includes cursive and print options, blank cards for custom jobs, and suggested fonts for easy editing. This tool helps in organizing and rotating students’ jobs efficiently, making classroom management smoother.

Summer Bulletin Board

Create a vibrant and customizable summer bulletin board with this editable PowerPoint resource! The download includes 22 slides featuring various designs like a girl or boy with a beach ball, a person with a surfboard, and more. You can easily add students’ photos or let them design their own faces with crayons and yarn. The resource also includes premade letter sets with phrases like “Having a Ball This Summer” or “Surfing Into Summer,” and provides both color and black-and-white options. Additionally, there’s a bonus summer hat design and a van/surfboard image for display, complete with an example of how to assemble the board.

Looking for more summer fun? Check out my post here for the perfect summer PBL activity!

Summer Packets To Prevent The Summer Slide

May 13, 2022 teachersbrain education, Math, Reading, Sight Words, Teacher's Pay Teachers, Teaching Tips

Summer is just around the corner! This is one of the best times of the year because not only do you get a much-needed break, but you get to see all of the progress your students have made throughout the year and celebrate them for it. Seeing how far they have come in their reading levels or math skills is just wonderful. Even better, it’s amazing to see how their confidence has grown throughout the year!

With the long relaxing break, however, comes one not-so-fun thing. The summer slide.

What is the summer slide?

This is the tendency of students to lose some of the achievement gains that they made during the school year and regress academically. This is especially prevalent in low-income areas.

How do you beat the summer slide?

I know, the last thing you want is for your students to go backward. But what can you do? One of the best ways to keep that knowledge fresh is to assign some educational activities for students to complete during summer break. Another idea is to keep them reading with some fun reading summer challenges. You could send home a reading log for students to fill in with everything they read on their own during the summer and if they bring it back completed they get to go to an ice cream party.

For more reasons to keep students learning during summer break, check out my post here!

How do you engage students over the summer?

You’ll want activities that are engaging enough that they will stick to it and be excited to do. Need summer activities for students? Don’t worry, I have you covered!

These summer packets for 1st grade are all you need!

I love these packets because they are completely digital. This means that you don’t need to print out a bunch of packets and spend time putting them together. Students can complete it all online!

This is designed with Google Slides. It includes a parent letter, physical and oral suggestions, a reading log, and a review of math and language arts activities. Students do not need to have Google Classroom to participate.

Here’s what’s included:

How to use this packet and Parent Tips
Oral and physical activity suggestions
Reading Log
Sight Word List
Sight Word Sort Review Activities
Word Families
ABC Order Printables
Correcting Sentences
(Nouns, Verbs, Proper Nouns, Long and Short Vowels)
WRITING – Narrative, Opinion, Creative (Some printable to encourage handwriting)
Comprehension & Fluency
MATH Number Bonds, Addition, Subtraction, Shapes, measurement, 10 More 10 Less

Check out the summer packets for 1st grade video tutorial here!

If you love this summer packet, make sure to check out the packet for each grade in elementary school!

These are perfect no matter what grade you teach. The activities can be explained by the adult, but on most pages, it should not be necessary since it is a review. Children should be able to complete most activities independently.

I recommend setting a 20 to 30-minute block of time for the student daily to work on these activities. They should enhance their vacation! Each packet includes a summer journal, sight words, reading logs, math, and LA printables.

Do you assign summer activity packets? Let me know in the comments!