10 Fun summer school activities students will enjoy
How can I make summer school fun?
Since students are on break, it’s important to incorporate summer learning activities and assignments that will keep them engaged enough in their learning. Summer learning and summer school can be fun for students when instruction and activities are interactive, out-of-the-box, engaging, collaborative, and relevant to their interests. Set realistic expectations for yourself and your students in order to address their learning needs while still allowing them to enjoy time off from school.
Although this seems difficult to accomplish, using tools that students love, such as Flocabulary, can set you and your class up for success.
What is Flocabulary?
Flocabulary’s 1,300+ standards-aligned, video-based lessons with activities support vocabulary acquisition and comprehension skills across K-12 subjects. These high-quality videos captivate students and create an impactful and memorable learning experience by harnessing the power of hip-hop music, visual art, storytelling, humor, drama, and poetry.
Flocab was built on one of the most influential music genres in the world, hip-hop. Rapping, a core element of hip-hop, is built on the creative use of language and draws attention to the written and spoken word. In addition to the videos, our lesson activities are uniquely engaging, placing students in the role of the creator while building comprehension and key vocabulary.
New to Flocabulary? Teachers can sign up for a trial to access our lesson videos and assessment activities. Administrators can get in touch with us to learn more about unlocking the full power of Flocabulary through Flocabulary Plus.
10 Fun summer school activities students will enjoy
School’s almost out. We helped you engage your students during the school year, and now we’re here to help your students fight the summer slide with these summer school activities. You can assign these activities alongside summer reading, or simply allow your students to choose one or two fun options from the list. Read on to learn more about assignment suggestions, from a summer vocabulary goal to a Week in Rap log.
1. Create your own Week in Rap
In 2 minutes of rap, Flocabulary provides a week’s worth of current events, every Friday, August through May, loaded with relevant and engaging stories. Have students create their own Week in Rap songs throughout the summer by reading about current events, reflecting on them, deciding which ones are newsworthy, and creating your own songs and videos. Summer activities for kids can include making monthly videos instead of weekly ones, or one long summer week in rap to cover what happened in the world while school was out.
2. Write a rap about summer reading
Most schools that assign summer reading assign some form of writing to go along with the book. Why not let your students prove they’ve read by writing a rap about their chosen reading? They can get inspired by hearing our hip-hop literature renditions of Toni Morrison to The Odyssey, and more. Then they can use our Hip-hop Fundamentals lesson to perfect their own songs.
3. Get a head start on history
By the time they leave school in the spring, most students know their schedules for the upcoming year. Have students get a head start on their upcoming Social Studies classes with our summer learning activities, history songs, and videos. Whether they’re taking U.S. History, Ancient World History, or Modern World History, challenge students to be at the top of their class by learning key historical facts over the summer by watching Flocabulary rap videos with their family, friends, or on their own.
4. Set a summer vocabulary goal
Fight the summer slump actively! For summer learning ideas, Challenge your students to learn a certain number of new words over their break (50? or 100 for the daring?). Make it competitive if you’d like. Once you set the goal, assign students to learn words on their reading level. We have a full vocabulary curriculum for grades K-8, and 12 SAT vocabulary songs. Students can simply listen to the songs and watch videos, then complete the supplemental activities to deepen vocabulary knowledge during summer school.
5. Set a summer goal by incorporating math games
Just like the above vocabulary challenge, set up a summer math facts competition. See who can come back to school in the fall knowing the most addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division facts. Our math fact hip-hop songs will make it easy to win!
You can also encourage students to review vocabulary terms using the Vocab Cards for fun summer school activities. Vocab Cards allow students to make meaning and build knowledge of the vocabulary words through writing and drawing.
6. Experiment at home with friends and family
The scientific method isn’t just used with beakers, test tubes, and complicated apparatus. Students can use it to figure out everything from the best type of joke to tell their younger sibling to the best route to school. Have them watch our Scientific Method hip-hop video to review. It will allow them to set up fun science experiments at home and get creative for fun summer activities.
7. Keep a summer rhyme journal
Keep your students in the habit of writing with quick and fun writing assignments during the summer programs. Have students commemorate their summer days with weekly journal entries…in rhyme. Using our rhyme and rhythm lesson plan, practice a few lines before the school year ends. And then, each week, have students write four lines about the happenings of the last 7 days. Have them use Lyric Lab to write rhymes, use vocabulary words, and possibly perform their songs with the beats.
8. Send students on a literacy scavenger hung
Literacy doesn’t just happen in a library. Over break, students can practice literacy skills all over town with this scavenger hunt. Analyze billboards, create a guidebook to your town, and even educationally eavesdrop. Students can try to find examples of irony in new movies or TV shows they watch over the summer. For these fun summer school activities, let students take their pick of 2 different assignments.
9. Find figurative language in your favorite songs
Start by listening to Flocabulary’s figurative language to learn about wordplay for summer classroom activities. The figurative language song defines major literary devices like metaphors, allusions, and similes. If you listen closely, you’ll hear that each device mentioned in the song is followed by an example. The song follows Will, who wants to be the next big emcee. He finds his signature style when he starts using wordplay in his rhymes.
After watching the lesson video, assign students to find the different types of figurative language in their favorite music.
10. Write a fantasy story
Over the summer, fantasy books are at the top of kids’ lists. Ask students to listen to our song about genres in fiction to learn about imagination and fantasy. Then, have them write their own fantasy song or story to accomplish these summer classroom ideas.
Start using Flocabulary for summer school learning activities
Other engaging activities can include creating a summer bucket list for students to enjoy. Incorporating hands-on activities such as sidewalk chalk art and water balloon games can bring fun to the summer school curriculum. On a rainy day, indoor projects like mixing food coloring for art or science experiments can keep students entertained while learning. These activities ensure that summer school is not just educational, but also a memorable and enjoyable experience for all.
We’re so excited to see you use these activities and tips with your students! Don’t forget you can also use these ideas during the school year as well. Start using Flocabulary now with your students to practice and continue using it for back to school. Happy summer!
New to Flocabulary? Teachers can sign up for a trial to access our lesson videos and assessment activities. Administrators can get in touch with us to learn more about unlocking the full power of Flocabulary through Flocabulary Plus.
