Looking for great summer writing activities for your kindergarten or first grade students? Writing is hard work for our new little writers and it can be tricky to keep them motivated… especially at the end of the school year! Read on for 3 fun summer ideas that will keep your students writing right up until the last day.
Label it! Summer Writing
If you are having trouble keeping your students focused this time of year… these short but powerful writing pages might be just what you need. There are a variety of fun summer topics to choose from (25 in all!)… something to interest everyone! Keep your students working on vocabulary and writing sentences without overwhelming them. Easy to differentiate (4 versions for each page) so you can choose just what your students need. And for those writers raring to write more… they make a great starting place for all their summer stories!
You can find this resource HERE.
Summer Class Books
If you aren’t familiar with class or collaborative books, they are simply a book that each student in your class writes and illustrates a page of. Since each student contributes just one page, it is a short motivating structured activity that will keep your students’ interest. My students loved creating class books and it was popular right until the end of the year.
If you have been making class books with your class all year long, you might be wondering what to do with them at the end of the school year? Here’s what I did. I took all the books apart (saved the covers for next year) and gave students their pages to take home. Some years I just stapled all their pages together and other years I actually bound the pages together to make them their own book. Teachers who have used this resource have also shared their ideas. One teacher raffled the class books off and another class had made enough books for each student to take one home.
You can find this resource HERE.
Summer Write the Room
As things are winding down… you still need to keep your students busy, and hopefully… still writing! Summer write the room makes a great activity for the last days before summer break. Wiggly students are able to move around the classroom while they find and write down summer vocabulary words. Then follow up with a word search (always a student fave)!
You can find this resource HERE.
Your students are already thinking of summer… so don’t fight it! Keep them writing with these engaging summer writing activities. There are sets for all the seasons (like fall, winter and spring) if you want to use them all year long. Adding summer writing and math activities to your classroom is relevant and engaging for your students… especially at the end of the year!