7 Fun Activities to Prevent Summer Slide

After spending the school year working hard and making great gains in literacy and math, it’s time for students to take some time off from daily classroom learning activities. The time away from school during summer break can cause students to backtrack. While some learning loss is common, it’s important to do what we can prevent significant skill loss.  In this post, I’m sharing seven fun learning activities to prevent summer slide after kindergarten.

What is the Summer Slide?

Summer learning loss.  Summer slump. Summer slide.  It goes by many different names, but it all refers to the same “use it or lose it” concept.  When students are out of school they are less likely to participate in daily learning activities that use literacy and math skills. This causes students to lose some of the skills that they have learned during the school year. The summer slide is so common that it has been subject of countless research studies and has prompted the founding of the National Summer Learning Association.

Even though summer learning loss is common for most elementary students, we can still encourage them to practice at home in order to prevent summer slide.

7 Fun Learning Activities to Prevent Summer Slide

Whether you are a teacher or a parent looking for fun summer learning activities, I hope that these ideas will serve as inspiration for how to keep kids learning over the summer.  One of my favorite ways to encourage students to get excited about summer learning is to send them home with the activities they just couldn’t get enough of during the school year. They are always so excited to have their own packet of their favorite activities from kindergarten! 

In this post, I have compiled a list of those student favorites, plus a few additional fun activities for young students that will help prevent summer slide.

1. Summer Review Packet

Over the summer, kindergarten students need to continue to practice important fine motor skills like letter and number formation, coloring, cutting, and gluing. A review packet of fun summer-themed activities will encourage students to practice important literacy and math skills as they use their fine motor skills.

This June Kindergarten Homework resource includes four weekly homework packets that each include three math and three literacy activities.  It’s perfect for summer skill review! You can find this resource in the A Spoonful of Learning shop or on Teachers Pay Teachers.

2. Mystery Pictures

These mystery puzzles are so exciting for students to complete!  They love the suspense of seeing what picture emerges as they color in each square.  I have created a bundle of these fun mystery pictures that include a variety of math and literacy skills to help prevent summer slide.  

You can customize your students’ summer learning by sending home mystery pictures that focus on specific skills that you would like them to practice.  With over 200 different pictures to choose from, you can also choose the images that you think your students would be most excited to reveal!

3. Alphabet Water Play

One of my favorite alphabet water play activities is to squirt the letter on the fence.  All you need for this activity is chalk and a water squirter of some kind.  After writing a variety of letters on the fence, give the child a water squirter.  Say a letter out loud and the child needs to find the letter on the fence and squirt it with the water. 

If you don’t have a fence, the same activity could be done on the driveway, sidewalk, or any other concrete surface. While this activity will be implemented by parents, kindergarten teachers could send home some sidewalk chalk and a water squirter as a gift for the last day of school. 

4. Mystery Puzzles

Mystery puzzles are another student favorite that are a great choice to send home for summer learning!  Students can practice their fine motor skills as they record their work on the sheet, then cut and paste the puzzle pieces to reveal the mystery! The best part of these puzzles is that they are self correcting, since the picture won’t look right if the pieces are placed incorrectly.

This large bundle of over 150 mystery puzzles covers a variety literacy and math skills that students learned during kindergarten.  You can visit the A Spoonful of Learning shop or my Teachers Pay Teachers store to see everything that is included in this resource.

5. Street Sign A-Z Letter Hunt 

Another important goal for children over the summer is to get moving!  A street sign letter walk will encourage students to walk through their neighborhood as they look for all of the alphabet letters in order.  They can walk until they get to the letter Z! 

This activity can also be modified for students who go on road trips during the summer – they can watch for letters on billboards and signs to give them a break from using screens in the car.

6. Summer Digital Centers

Speaking of screen time, it’s highly likely that our students will have a bit more screen time during the summer. Sometimes the weather is just too hot to go outside and play!  Encourage students to use their screen time for learning with these fun summer-themed digital centers.  

I have created a total of 28 digital centers that cover a variety of literacy and math skills that students have learned during kindergarten. These interactive summer learning activities can be assigned on Google Classroom or on Seesaw so that your students can make the most of their screen time!  You can head over to my A Spoonful of Learning shop or TPT store to check out all of the activities included in this bundle. 

7. Summer Learning Activity Sampler

Are you having a hard time deciding between all of the fun activities mentioned above?  This sampler of summer learning activities includes two mystery puzzles, two mystery puzzles, and two riddle activities.  All of these activities will get your students excited to practice a variety of math and literacy skills over the summer. Just fill out the form below to get these free activities delivered straight to your inbox!

Save These Activities to Prevent Summer Slide

Would you like to come back to these activities later? Just save this pin to your favorite board of teaching ideas on Pinterest.  You’ll be able to quickly find these activities later!