Summer Learning Planning Guide

Even when you don't homeschool year-round, you can still help your children continue their learning journeys over summer. You can use our summer learning planning guide for each of your children each year. Use this guide to make your children's summer educational and fulfilling without feeling like you're trying to fit in too much (or too little) with the rest of your family's summer schedule.

Grade Level(s):

This summer learning planning guide is designed to be used with homeschooled children in all grade levels.

Why to Use:

Use this guide to help your child continue learning over summer.  While it is important to embrace the break over summer, when treating learning as a life practice, it is highly beneficial to encourage critical thinking and curiosity year-round. The goal isn’t necessarily to have a packed summer, but instead to have a memorable and engaging summer with select learning experiences to foster creativity and discovery. 

Even if you home school year-round, it can be helpful to shift the routine over summer. This allows you to align your child’s schedule with those of peers who are in traditional school and to participate in summer offerings like camps. 

How to Use:

This summer learning planning guide is designed to be added to your home school planner as a supplemental insert. Start by adding the dates included in this year’s summer break. Then, add any known plans like vacations, camps, and other summer traditions. Before the next step, reflect on how full the summer looks. 

Next list your child’s preferred skills and activities, as well as skills and activities that need more practice. For the latter, focus on what was presented in the last school year, not new material. The goal is to have some learning experiences that are challenging but not out of reach.

In addition to preparing these lists yourself, have your child create a Summer Bucket List at the end of the school year to give you additional ideas. If your children isn’t writing yet, do this together.

Based on the fullness of your summer and your child’s interests and needs, decide what learning activities make sense to do every day, a half-day, a full-day, or as an ongoing project. 

Next, look for any gaps in your summer calendar. Pencil in half-day, full-day, and ongoing summer projects where you have gaps. As these days approach, you can decide if other summer opportunities are available (and preferable). If not, you’ll have engaging days at the ready. 

When to Use: 

Use this planning guide in the last term before the summer break. Plan to complete it each year and make updates and improvements based on what you learned from the prior summer and to account for your child’s developing skills and interests. 

Parent-Educator Tips:

This summer learning planning guide is designed to take about 60 minutes to complete initially, but plan to revisit it as you have additional ideas for summer learning opportunities.

When choosing learning activities to add to each month, account for the fullness of your child’s summer schedule. If your child’s summer is full with camps or other activities, focus on choosing a few high-quality learning activities. Conversely, if your child has a lot of open time over summer, you may want to add more activities or focus on a larger summer project.

Please note: All of our resources are for the purchaser’s use only. While we encourage you to use all of our resources as many times as you want to (including year after year), we ask that you do not provide copies to other people.