Summer Activities to Foster Literacy Skills
Plant Flowers
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Talk about what a plant needs to grow
(sun, soil, water, seeds).
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Talk about what people need
to grow (healthy snacks, milk,
water)
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Measure your plant’s growth
on a chart and measure your child’s
growth over the summer.
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Compare how tall your plant has grown
with proper care and how much your child
has grown from eating healthy food.
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Find a Favorite Recipe
Have your child gather the ingredients
needed for the recipe by
following your directions.
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Allow them to measure
the ingredients into the
bowl and discuss different
amounts of each ingredient
you will need.
Use words such as stir, mix, bake, beat,
scrape, and spoon.
Go On A Picnic or Go Camping
Make a list of things you need for your trip. Have your child help you make the picnic lunch and
pack the basket. Work on labeling items and talking about the things you may be able to do on
your outing.
Use sidewalk chalk to draw a picture. Have your child tell you a story about the picture. Try to
expand their story by asking “wh-” questions (who, what, where, why, when)
Go for a nature walk. Gather items to sort by attributes (color, size, shape)
Bubbles. Pop bubbles. Talk about size, shape, floating, sinking, positional words (up, down) and
descriptive words (fast, slow).
Make a list of rhyming words even if they are nonsense words. (fat, cat, lat, gat)
Look in magazines for pictures that start with a particular letter and make a letter collage.
Write letters with a stick at the beach. Write your names. Write rhyming words.
Look for letters on signs as you are driving. Look for signs for stores. What letter does it start
with?
Hot V. Cold Use magazines and flyers to cut out pictures of hot and cold things. Talk about the
differences in weather between summer and winter. Cut out pictures of winter and summer activities and clothing. Make a collage of winter v. summer and hot v. cold items.
N. Rich 2006
Read a favorite summer book.
Go to the library and gather books about the ocean and sea creatures.
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Next time at the beach, try to find the items.
After your child is familiar with a story ask her to tell you the story by
looking at the pictures.
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Ask who the characters are and what they are doing.
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Is there a problem in the story? How do the characters solve the problem?
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What is your child’s favorite part of the story?
Maybe your child would like to draw a picture from the story.
Make a list of all the stories you read over the summer and count how
many!
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What was your child’s favorite story?
Look for a particular letter in the story (such as all the A’s) or look for all
the small words the, and, or, in, to.
Make your own book after an outing such as a trip to the beach. Your child
can dictate what s/he did on the trip and later draw pictures for the book.
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N. Rich 2006
Use photos and captions to make a special book.
Read Dr. Seuss and find all the rhyming words.