Summer Theme and Centers for Preschoolers
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Summer is going strong and with this started the hurricane season, here in Florida. Regardless of this situation and the scare that we all have every year, this season is for children to have fun, “recharge their batteries” and play outside and inside.
Now, for preschool centers like the one I run that don’t ever close, summer is also a time to continue with our teaching-learning process, but in a more laid-back way. As a matter of fact, it’s an opportunity to use different themes outside the curriculum, and to change the routine a little bit bringing in new games and different activities than the ones we normally do during the school year.
Here are some ideas to make the summer fun but full of learning activities for your kids!
Circle Time
Circle Time is a very important activity to kick off the day and introduce what you have scheduled for that day, that could be a theme, a letter, a number, whatever that may be. It is also a time for preschoolers to learn how to respect each other and the teacher while they are together as a large group.
I like to start circle time with a song or a storybook related to the theme I have for that week, in this case, Summer, and then continue with a simple activity.
These are some great songs you can use for this purpose.
This is the Way (Summer) by Fantastic Fun and Learning.
Summer Time Is, Here Again, by Preschool Learning Online
Literacy Center
Literacy activities give preschoolers the foundation for reading and writing. It is important to use different opportunities to help them learn, and these activities can be as simple as reading a story, writing lists, singing, and playing rhyming games.
Summer Rhyming Time Activity
This type of activity is great to strengthen the children’s vocabulary knowledge, phonological awareness skills, concentration and sounds discrimination. To use it print each page using white cardstock. If you want to use them multiple times, place them on a dry-erase protector or laminate them, and have the children use dry-erase markers.
These rhyming word activities can be used as:
- Small group activity.
- Literacy center option.
- Take home activity.
- Quiet area option.
To extend the activity you can:
- Provide copies of the pages and have your preschoolers cut out the matching words and glue them on a piece of construction paper or regular paper to create a rhyming book.
- Have the children trace or copy the words.
- Match each word with plastic or foam letters.
- Draw the pictures.
Library Ideas
If you have visited my site before, you may know how important I consider books. Reading is one of my favorite things, not just for myself, but also for my kiddos.
Gather fiction and non-fiction books about Summer to support the theme. There are tons of beautiful ones that you can use, which could be found at your local library, in a used bookstore, and on Amazon. These are some of my favorites:
- A Summery Saturday Morning by Margaret Mahy is a story about a group of children, dogs, a cat, and a gaggle of geese enjoying their summery Saturday morning even though things do not go quite as planned.
- The Seashore Book by Charlotte Zolotow’s beautiful pictures bring to life a day at the beach imagined by a boy and his mother, and how they are hunting for seashells and building sandcastles on their imagination, during a perfect summer.
- Water by Frank Asch encourages young readers to appreciate water in its many forms.
- Mouse’s First Summer by Lauren Thompson, is a story about two cute mice that invite the reader to celebrate summer with a picnic in the park and have fun rolling down the hill on tickly green grass, flying kites, and enjoying some juicy watermelon.
- Summer (Four Seasons) by Nuria Roca, with large and beautiful color illustrations, will love having the simply written descriptive text read to them as they gaze at the charming pictures, which evoke the moods and activities of summer.
- The Summer Visitors by Karel traces the interactions between a family of bears and a human family during their summer stay at a lake cottage, told primarily through illustration, with only a few dozen words.
- Carl’s Summer Vacation by Alexandra Day is a sweet story about a dog and a girl who take advantage of their parent’s distraction to do some canoeing, pick blackberries, and enjoy a picnic.
- How I Spent My Summer Vacation by Mark Teague is the story about a boy who was carried off by cowboys and taught the ways of the West–from riding buckin’ broncos to roping cattle. Perfect for back-to-school read-aloud, here’s a Western fantasy with sparkling illustrations and enough action to knock kids’ boots off!
- The Night Before Summer Camp by Natasha Wing talks about a little girl and her family trying to get ready to go on vacation and provides a funny ending that everybody will enjoy.
- Ready for Summer by Marthe Jocelyn is the story around the question What am I going to wear? is first presented in the toddler years when the mastery of getting dressed is a triumph and opinions about clothing are emphatic.
- And Then Comes Summer by Tom Brenner is a celebration of the sunny season using nostalgia-soaked illustrations about flip-flops and hide-and-seek to fireworks and ice-cream trucks, from lemonade stands and late bedtimes to swimming in the lake and toasting marshmallows, that leave little doubt that summer is indeed a time unlike any other.
- Pete the Cat at the Beach by James Dean presents how this cat finds shells and builds sandcastles at the beach.
Science
Science is one of my favorite subjects, and it’s an important part of any preschool classroom. Since young children are naturally observant, science also offers them a lot of opportunities to make observations and use scientific vocabulary, record data and follow the scientific process to communicate results.
Grow Aqua Dragons
This is a wonderful experiment perfect for summer. This special habitat comes with everything you need to hatch and grow amazing tiny Aqua Dragons. You just have to place the eggs into their water-filled habitat and after 48 hours tiny aquatic dragons will hatch and come to life! Children can observe these aquatic tiny pets, draw them, talk about them, and dictate stories.
My children had one of these tanks when they were little, and they loved it. It was a wonderful teaching experience and an excellent opportunity I used it as a STEM activity in my house.
Sea Shells Observation
My students have always liked this easy preparation activity. You just have to provide a very large variety of seashells and magnifying glasses. As the children observe the shells, have them talk about the different colors, sizes, textures, and designs the shells have.
Tell them that some sea animals called mollusks use the shells for protection, and when they die the shells are washed up to the shore. Some types of mollusks are called clams, scallops, mussels, and oysters and we eat them. Other mollusks don’t have shells like the octopus.
To extend the activity you can invite the children to draw their favorite shells.
Math
We cannot forget about Math. It helps children solve problems, recognize and use shapes, measure and develop their spatial awareness, recognize and copy patterns, and many other important skills.
You can do many Math activities throughout the day. These are just some of them:
- Sort the shells by colors, sizes, textures, and/or designs.
- Count how many shells they find that are alike.
- Select different types of shells and have the children select their favorite ones. Make a graph with their answers and count together to see how many shells were selected of each type.
- Have them make patterns with the shells.
I also created two different, and FREE activities that you can grab just by clicking on the link. These are:
Summer Count and Clip Cards
This FREE activity will help preschoolers develop their fine motor skills building strength in the muscles on their fingers and hands, and develop a proper pencil grasp.
The freebie includes four pages with six different cards each, with very pretty pictures. Your students just have to count how many pictures are on each card and use a clothespin to mark the correct number.
You can get this activity simply by clicking on the link below.
Summer Math Puzzles
These FREE activities will encourage your preschoolers to practice their number sequences and put together the different puzzles. This freebie includes ten puzzles with beautiful and real Summer pictures, using different number sequences. You can get your free printable below.
Crafts
Crafts are always fun and an excellent resource to help preschoolers develop their creativity and fine motor skills.
Some ideas I have for you today are:
- Shadow paints: have them cut out summer shapes such as beach balls, pails, shovels, fish, sunglasses, etc., and place them on top of a black construction paper. Then they have to take them outside and place them when they receive a lot of sun for one or two days. After that, they can bring them inside, take out the shapes, and discover how the sun printed the shapes on the construction paper.
- Citrus Art: bring lemons, limes, and oranges, cut them in half, and let them dry a little. Have the children use these fruit halves to paint, dipping them in yellow, orange, and green tempera paints, and press them on a sheet of white paper.
Music and Movement
Music and Movement are an integral part of any preschool program, and children always love that part of the day. There are a lot of songs and poems you can teach your preschoolers.
There are many songs, rhymes, fingerplays, and poems that you can use for Summer, and the best part is that you can download them for free so you can have them handy.
These are some examples:
- Summer Time Song by Preschool Learning Online
- Summer’s Coming – Summer’s Coming by Preschool Learning Online
- Mr. Sun, Sun Mr. Golden Sun by Preschool Learning Online
Sensory Activities
Preschoolers enjoy these activities and provide an excellent opportunity to put their senses to work, ask questions that will encourage children to analyze situations and come up with scientific answers. They also promote imaginary play and language development.
Beach Sensory Table
Place a small container with water on your sensory table. Fill the rest of the table with sand. Add boats, shells, sea animals, mini beach toys, mini flip flops, etc., and have them play on the pretend beach.
Dramatic Play
This is a great theme to switch things around in your Dramatic Play area, and create a beach, pool, or picnic scene, to allow your preschoolers to develop their imagination and creativity.
Some of the items you can include to create these scenes are beach towels, sunglasses, beach hats, beach umbrella, cooler, flip flops, sun hats, plastic fish, beach toys, shells, small plastic pool, picnic items, table cloth or blanket, plastic food and drinks, and anything else you can come up with, to make your theme come alive.
Writing Area
We must give plenty of opportunities for young children to practice their emergent writing and to encourage them to communicate their thoughts. Also, we should record their ideas taking dictation to what they have to say.
With this in mind, provide children with paper, markers, crayons, colored pencils, stencils, etc., and have them create their summer theme. Encourage them to talk about what they are drawing and take dictation, writing in their papers their own words (don’t forget to ask them if you can do that). Also, use the opportunity to talk to them about their favorite activities during summer, to encourage conversation and language development.
Fine Motor Ideas
Even when many of the above activities cross over and help them develop their fine motor skills, I just wanted to mention a few more. These hands-on activities are not only fun but are also educational, and will definitely help your little learners develop the little muscles on their hands and fingers, to prepare them for writing. Some ideas are:
- Water paint: since it’s hot this time of year, take special activities outside. You can bring pails with water and brushes, and have them “paint” the swing set, the trees, the walls, the sidewalk, and anything they can find with water. It is a fun activity that will have children working on those fine motor skills.
- Sidewalk chalk: a similar activity is to provide children with sidewalk chalk. Then can “paint” anything and everything in the children, as they did with the water.
Gross Motor Ideas
There are many activities that you can do related to this theme. Some activities that come to mind are:
- Have a water race: bring beach pails and shovels. Divide the children into two teams. Have each member of the team line one behind the other. The idea is to fill out a beach shovel with water and run to the finish line to pour the water into the other beach pail, trying not to drop too much water. The team that fills out most of his pail wins.
- Tricycle races: prepare a finish line and have children ride their tricycles as fast as they can to get to the finish line first. At the end, give everybody popsicles to cool off. Everybody wins!
- Swim like sea creatures: take your radio out and play music. Let the children dance moving as if they were their favorite sea creatures.
- Play Summer tag: a simple game that children love, they can use plastic shovels to tag their friends instead of their hands.
- Summer volleyball: have the children play volleyball using a beach ball instead.
Outdoor Ideas
You can take advantage of the summer weather to do educational activities that will tie up with your Summer theme very nicely. Some of them are:
- Wildlife observation: when they go outside and pay real attention to animal wildlife they see. Have them name the animals they can see and talk about the attributes of those animals, and what they are doing.
- Find Shapes in the Clouds: have them lie down and observe the clouds, to see what shapes they spot. Have them talk about the shapes they can make up in the clouds.
- Have a Picnic: take some tablecloths and their lunch or snack outside, and have a picnic day.
- Blow Bubbles: take bubble solutions and different types of bubble wands and let them have fun.
- Pretend to be at the Beach: bring an empty kid’s pool close to the sandbox. Provide beach toys, plastic sea creatures, shells, beach balls, beach towels, bathing suits, sunglasses, summer hats, empty sunscreen bottles, beach umbrellas, a cooler, and any other item you can think about, and let them pretend they are at the beach.
Block Center
Bringing your Summer theme to the block center is not difficult. You just have to add summer props like shells, beach toys, plastic sea creatures, camping items, a small kid’s pool, books about Summer, mini people, among other items.
Let them turn the Block Center into a beach, a picnic area, a boat, a camping ground, and anything they can come up with. The idea is for them to let their creativity run wild and have fun, for hours of learning while they play.
Cooking
I love to let children work in the kitchen. It is a fun and perfect opportunity for teachable moments such as reviewing colors and shapes, counting, measuring, fine motor, and creativity development. In addition, every celebration needs food, and you can use the opportunity to have your preschoolers prepare their snacks.
This is a great snack preschoolers can prepare easily:
- Hot dogs: You just need previously boiled hot dogs, hot dog buns, mayonnaise, ketchup, and mustard. Let children prepare their hot dogs. The only thing left is to eat!
- Lemonade or Orange Juice: provide previously cut lemons and oranges (you don’t want to risk the children cutting themselves). Have them select the fruit they want to use, squeezing as many halves as they want into a cup. They can add some ice and enjoy their juice.
Decorations
An important part of any celebration or theme is adding decorations so your classroom looking beautiful and putting everybody in a good and happy mood. Of course, the most important thing to use as décor in your children’s artwork, giving them a sense of accomplishment and ownership.
Last Thoughts
Here in Florida, Summer is very hot and humid, and we have to watch for hurricanes, hoping they don’t come inland.
I am from the tropics where is also hot but drier, and even after so many years of living in Florida I still don’t get used to this weather, to be honest. I don’t even like to go outside that much during Summer because of that, but I know there are thousands of people who love to go to the beach, camping, hiking, and all that fun stuff. I prefer to do it in the Fall.
Nevertheless, Summer is an exciting season, where children and parents can do fun activities outside, change their routines, and recharge their batteries to get ready for a new school year.
I hope this is a great season for you, your family, and your students. Have fun and be safe during this time.
Be happy, safe, and creative. I wish you well.
Love,
P.D. Please let me know if you like any of these activities, or if you came up with some other ideas for your classroom. I would love to post them as well.
