Last updated on March 26th, 2024 at 06:41 pm
It’s possible you’ve found your way here because you’ve decided to teach summer school this year.
You’ve taken up a noble quest. You will join the ranks of myriads of other tough teachers braving their classrooms in the summer heat. (We’re the most fun of them all, I’d argue.)
But how are you possibly going to enjoy this summer, working the daylight hours away instead of vacationing or resting?
Let me serve as your guide to the thrill that is teaching summer school to elementary students.
Remember: Simple is always better
Summer school is just different than regular school. That’s part of the fun.
But along with this expectation of difference comes pressure. Just because there might be room for extra fun things and experiences doesn’t mean you need to be a tireless ringleader in orchestrating it all.
After all, summer school is not equal to summer camp. Learning, not fun, is supposed to be the primary goal, with fun as an added bonus, right?
So I’m giving you permission to take the pressure off. Each day does not have to be a magical, over-the-top experience, as long as the kids are safe and learning and generally pleased. That doesn’t take much, though.
Honestly, you could make a kid’s entire day by giving him a few extra Goldfish at snack time.
It’s often the simplest of things that somehow evade our consciousness but live on in the memories of the students.
Kids make their own fun when they are given creative freedom
When I taught summer school to rising Kindergarteners, we had a nice chunk of free play time each day. They had different choices for games and creative activities. Some of the educational toys the school provided us with were really cool STEM-related items. The kids really enjoyed playing with those, creating and building all sorts of things. But you know what else they enjoyed?
For a solid week, my students were enthralled– totally obsessed– with making unicorn horns. They’d curl paper they colored into cones and have me staple it in place, then we’d hole punch the cone and add yarn to make these unicorn horns wearable.
You’d think they were going to a theme park each day, they were having so much fun.
(And don’t get me started on the week they obsessed over making masks.)
These things were simple, memorable, and totally their idea. A win on all counts.
Examples of summer learning activities for elementary age students
Indoor activities:
- Read aloud from a big book
- Write, create and perform a paperbag puppet show
- Conduct science experiments
- Easy/no bake cooking for kids
- Write and illustrate stories
- Play board or group games
- Put on a short video brain break
- Play “around the world” using flashcards for math facts or other subjects
- Timed math tests (addition, subtraction, multiplication or division)
- Sing fun or educational songs
- Free play using centers such as building materials, coloring, play dough, dolls and dollhouse, dramatic play, etc.
- Solve puzzles and riddles
- Download and try an educational “escape room”
Outdoor activities:
- Blow bubbles of various shapes with different wands
- Learn new outdoor group games
- Splash around using a water table
- Drive trucks and automobiles through a sandbox
- Observe and take notes on nature findings
- Free play on a playground
- Play various sports
- Take out and eat a picnic
Create a plan for behavior management
I’m going to throw in a little nuance here, and despite my last point about keeping things simple, I don’t mean throw out all schoolyear practices and decorum.
I encourage you to come up with a simple, concrete classroom management strategy.
I’ve found, from personal experience, that just walking in and deciding to take on behavior issues just “as they come” with no real plan is a recipe for a really unfun and chaotic babysitting session.
Summer school is more than a childcare session– the kids are there to learn. And that will mean protecting students’ learning from behaviors that may be disruptive or unsafe.
I outline my favorite tips for summer school behavior management in another blog post, but essentially I use a combination of my fundamental behavior techniques in conjunction with a super simple system.
A simple, surf-themed behavior management system
During the regular school year, I’m not usually fan of charts, displays or really any extrinsic classroom management systems. But– it bears repeating– summer school is different.
Especially teaching rising Kindergarteners, who are brand-new at the school thing.
So I created a fun surfing-themed chart (perfect for summer, right?) that included three levels: neutral, positive, and negative. I wanted to keep things as simple as possible while also having a display for the children to know where they were. Each student has their own labeled surfboard. I put magnets on the surfboards, and I move them to their respective level.
The students all started the day on the middle level (neutral). Each day was a clean slate regardless of how the previous day went. Then if a student needed more than one reminder about his or her behavior, I scooted their corresponding surfboard down to the “Need to Chill” level.
The uppermost level, “Surf’s Up,” was reserved for when students demonstrated above and beyond behavior. I’d slide their surfboards up to that level if they earned it.
Both the upper and lower levels were associated with a consequence. The neutral level remained neutral with no consequence. And that’s it!
The system worked pretty well and gave the students the visual I think they needed.
Collaborate with colleagues to lighten the summer school load
Summer school can not only be a unique opportunity to form positive relationships with the students, but with the staff as well.
I felt a special bond with my fellow summer school teachers. Like we were in the trenches together.
Summer school is definitely the time to lean on your coworkers. Share lesson ideas and supplies, lighten each other’s loads.
This is not the time to compete, like some teachers do during the school year. Because it’s summer school, the stakes seem lower and chillaxing quotient seems higher. This makes just the right environment for having each other’s backs and collaborating.
When you manage to form friendships and work as a team, the workload shifts off your shoulders alone. You’re in this together. Might as well accept and give help.
Enjoy yourself and this crazy thing called summer school
“We remember our play time rules?” I asked my class of eager summer school students, who nodded and exclaimed in the affirmative. We went over the rules once more, in one big chorus, just in case.
Then I dismissed them one by one to go play their desired activity.
As I circulated the room, I tiptoed over spread-out magnetic tiles, wondered aloud at the beautiful artwork being produced, and narrowly missed colliding with a tower of blocks toppling over as I passed by.
Each group of kids buzzed around busily playing various games or crafts.
It was a mess and a little cacaphonous, but these kids were also creating, imagining, and working together. Besides, we usually got the mayhem all swept up by the end of the day.
When I finally sunk into my chair to watch all of the groups from my desk, I had a student come up and show me her picture she’d been working on. We chatted for a good while and then another student came in for a hug. After that, I had to get back up and intervene in a conflict between two students before it escalated. I stepped on a Lego on the way back. When I returned, there was a coloring page left for me with a singular, squiggly M.
It was just another day in summer school, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Embrace the perks and challenges of summer school
Teaching summer school to little ones (elementary age and younger) can make for long days of reteaching and reminding and redirecting. But it also has been the source of some of my warmest and dearest teaching memories.
You can have structure to the day without taking yourself too seriously. You can be friendly but firm so that the show can go on, so to speak. You have an important task before you to educate these kids in a season when no one really wants to think about school.
Might as well have fun with it.
Summer school teachers– would you add any helpful ideas or tricks to this list? I’d love to hear from you in the comments!
