Summer Theme and Centers for Preschoolers -

Summer Theme and Centers for Preschoolers

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Summer is going strong, and with this, the hurricane season has started 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 never close, summer is also a time to continue our teaching-learning process, but in a more laid-back way. In fact, it’s a chance to use themes outside the curriculum and change the routine a bit, bringing in new games and activities beyond what we normally do during the school year.

Here are some ideas to make summer fun while keeping it 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 to respect each other and the teacher while 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. Use different opportunities to help them learn; 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 for strengthening children’s vocabulary knowledge, phonological awareness skills, concentration, and sound discrimination. To use it, print each page using white cardstock. To reuse them, 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 you can find 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 don’t go quite as planned.

The Seashore Book by Charlotte Zolotow has beautiful pictures that bring to life a day at the beach imagined by a boy and his mother as they hunt for seashells and build sandcastles 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, beautiful color illustrations, will be loved when read aloud as children gaze at the charming pictures that 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 parents’ distraction to canoe, 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 a 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 follows a little girl and her family as they get ready for vacation and ends with a funny ending everyone will enjoy.

Ready for Summer by Marthe Jocelyn explores the question, “What am I going to wear?” It begins in the toddler years, when mastering getting dressed is a triumph and opinions about clothing are emphatic.

And Then Comes Summer by Tom Brenner celebrates the sunny season with nostalgia-soaked illustrations of flip-flops and hide-and-seek, from fireworks to ice-cream trucks, from lemonade stands and late bedtimes to swimming in the lake and toasting marshmallows, leaving little doubt that summer is 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 many opportunities to make observations, 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.

Seashells Observation

susan-wilkinson-se2EedGMZyU-unsplash — Photo by: Susan Wilkinson from Unsplash

My students have always liked this easy preparation activity. You just need 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.

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 build spatial awareness, recognize and copy patterns, and develop many other important skills.

You can do many Math activities throughout the day. These are just some of them:

Sort the shells by color, size, texture, and/or design.
Count how many shells they find that are alike.
Select different types of shells and have the children choose 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 FREE activities you can grab by clicking the link. These are:

Summer Count and Clip Cards

This FREE activity will help preschoolers develop their fine motor skills, build strength in the muscles in 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 black construction paper. Then take them outside and leave them in the sun for one or two days. After that, they can bring them inside, take out the shapes, and see how the sun printed them 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 by dipping them in yellow, orange, and green tempera paint, then pressing 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. You can teach your preschoolers many songs and poems.

You can use many songs, rhymes, fingerplays, and poems for Summer, and the best part is you can download them for free so you 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 they provide an excellent opportunity to put their senses to work and 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 that helps your preschoolers 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, tablecloth 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 young children plenty of opportunities to practice emergent writing and encourage them to communicate their thoughts. Also, we should record their ideas by taking dictation of 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 their own words on their papers (don’t forget to ask if you can do that). Also, use the opportunity to talk with them about their favorite summer activities to encourage conversation and language development.

Fine Motor Ideas

Even though many of the above activities also help them develop fine motor skills, I wanted to mention a few more. These hands-on activities are not only fun but also educational, and they will definitely help your little learners develop the small muscles in 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 of water and brushes and have them “paint” the swing set, the trees, the walls, the sidewalk, and anything else they can find with water. This fun activity will help children build fine motor skills.

Sidewalk chalk: A similar activity is to provide children with sidewalk chalk. They can “paint” anything and everything, 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 team member line up one behind the other. The idea is to fill a beach shovel with water and run to the finish line to pour 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 like 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

Take advantage of the summer weather with educational activities that tie in nicely with your Summer theme. Some of them are:

Wildlife observation: When they go outside and pay real attention to the wildlife they see. Have them name the animals they see and talk about their attributes 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 solution 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 of, 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 to let their creativity run wild and have fun, with hours of learning while they play.

Cooking

I love to let children work in the kitchen. It is a fun, perfect opportunity for teachable moments, such as reviewing colors and shapes, counting, measuring, fine motor skills, and creativity. Also, every celebration needs food, and you can use this 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 and squeeze 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 looks beautiful and puts everyone in a good, happy mood. Of course, the most important thing is to use your children’s artwork as décor, 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, which 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 thousands of people love going to the beach, camping, hiking, and all that fun stuff. I prefer to do it in the Fall.

Nevertheless, Summer is an exciting season when children and parents can do fun activities outside, change their routines, and recharge their batteries for a new school year.

I hope this season is great 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,