Fun Summer Break Learning Activities for Kids

The summer is here, and as you think about how to work fun into the days over break, it's just as important to plan time for your child to relax as it is to find learning activities that engage your kid’s mind to avoid accidental learning loss, otherwise known as the “summer slide.”

How can Summer Activities Supplement Students' Learning?

Children thrive when they can play and engage their minds in an activity and their environment. Hands-on projects and experiments, for example, give them the space to indulge their curiosity and ask questions while they grow their observational and cognitive skills. As they get older, they can deepen their ability to make connections and draw conclusions while developing their problem-solving skills.

Summer gives your student time in their schedule that they might not typically have during the school year. Instead of looking at the summer as time off from learning, you can use the time to dive deeper into your child’s interests. The slower pace of the days also lets any creative ideas blossom when they want to rather than according to a due date.

Summer Learning Activities for Kids

Whether you’re staying local or are planning to travel over the summer, the types of learning activities you can choose from for kids of all ages are endless.

Summer Activities for Elementary School Students

For younger kids, you’ve got tons of options to make hands-on summer learning fun, rain or shine.

Field trips

Summertime means seasonal fruit like peaches, strawberries, and blackberries. Go fruit picking and make something tasty with what you gather.
Visit a botanical garden to learn more about plants and encourage a connection with growing things. Many gardens around the country have butterfly exhibits during the summer, which can make the experience extra magical.
Visit a zoo, petting zoo, or farm to learn about animals or meet them close up.

For rainy days

Make homemade playdough or slime and explore how ingredients come together to make new substances.
Make indoor scavenger hunts to find items that begin with the same letter, have the same shape, or for specific objects hidden around the house.
Have them set up an “exhibit” about their favorite toy or items and give you a tour as the museum curator or scientist.
Virtual field trips or live webcams for zoos or aquariums are a great way to pass the time on a rainy day.

All summer long

Play sight word games with sidewalk chalk to make practicing fun.
If you have a garden, make a toad house. Toads eat the bugs that eat your plants, which makes them a great form of pest control. You can get creative by painting your toad house and staying in touch with nature by visiting your new friend all summer long.
No summer is complete without ice cream—but make it educational by making ice cream in a bag as a fun science experiment.

Summer Activities for Middle School Students

For kids who are a bit older and can do a bit more on their own, try these educational summer activities on for size.

Field trips

Take a trip to a nature reserve for a long hike or go camping as a family and use it as a chance to connect with nature. You can even make a game around how many kinds of wildlife and interesting plants they can spot along the way and have them categorize them. Even if they’re not using any classroom knowledge on the trip, they are learning some pretty important life skills.
Get familiar with underwater life, conservation efforts and habitat preservation by visiting a local aquarium. Many aquariums will have a section dedicated to the marine life closest to you, may offer interactive experiences with sea creatures, and teach kids about how to make sustainable choices and care for the planet and its delicate ocean life.

For rainy days

Design and build a board game out of craft supplies to help them develop strategic thinking and problem-solving skills.
Enroll them in a coding boot camp to strengthen their creativity, logical reasoning, and critical thinking.
Challenge your child to come up with a story based on a particular genre. Give them a word bank and gamify it by giving out points for if they used most or all of the words. You can also do this with comic strips for your blossoming artist.
Learn about another culture to expand their horizons and get them thinking about their global neighbors. Cook traditional food or do a craft while learning about the world around you.

All summer long

Caring for heat-tolerant plants over the summer is a great learning activity that can teach kids a lot about plant cycles, caring for living things, and managing a growth schedule. You can go as large as a home garden or as small as growing some herbs or microgreens out of a single jar inside your home if you have limited space.
Teach kids how to give back by volunteering in your community over the summer. Get involved in park cleanups, collect canned goods for food banks, or see if you can contribute at your local animal shelter.

Summer Activities for High School Students

Many of the educational summer activities we’ve discussed so far can be done by students of all ages, but there are a few ways that older students can make the most out of their summer by going a bit further.

Field trips

Visit national parks, historical sites, or state capitol buildings to take a deeper dive into history or take guided tours.
Explore career opportunities through job shadowing, internships, or finding a mentor. Often, technical careers offer summer apprenticeships or summer camps to help students learn more about their career field.

For rainy days

Students can venture into space through NASA’s multimedia offerings, coming in the form of podcasts, video series, image galleries, and more.
For the art lover, virtual museum tours let you explore some of the world’s most famous works and institutions up close.
Watch documentaries and discuss them. They can be centered around a topic that your child is passionate about or about different topics throughout the summer. You can create your own film festival and dedicate one night a week to watching something as a family or one-one-one as their Learning Coach, then talking through their thoughts about it afterwards.

All summer long

Summer is outdoor entertainment season for a lot of cities, which can mean live music in parks or on beaches, outdoor movie screenings or even live theater. Plan to explore what your community has on offer.
Work on a creative writing project. This means thinking up an idea for a novel, screenplay, graphic novel or other creative work and outlining it, working in thematic elements and literary devices, developing the characters and so on. They can work on it all summer as both a creative and academic exercise to keep their brains engaged and to keep their writing skills sharp.
Encourage older students to take classes. This can be photography, art, music—whatever they want. The point is to let their interests drive their summer learning, which means developing their autonomy and self-discipline at the same time. They can also use the time to prepare for college or earn a certification to add to their resume and get a jump on their college applications if they choose to.