Summer School Reading Resources

Working with summer school this summer? I remember the days of wanting to plan high-interest, engaging activities...but not wanting to spend all day creating new materials.  Here are some resources that I have created that might save you time and get you back by the pool!

Reading Intervention
This intervention includes six high-interest nonfiction texts with summer themes, all written at a 4-5 grade reading level. You could use the entire 30-day program, or just use some parts. My students have always enjoyed reading "Leaves of Three, Let It Be" and then walking around the schoolyard to look at (but not touch) poison ivy! Other texts include caverns, thunderstorms, and bluebirds, all of which lend themselves to fun outdoor extensions.

May Reading Homework
My students loved the recipe for s'mores that I wrote for this series of texts. It would be fun to compare and contrast the classic s'mores with the indoor s'more recipe!

Also included is a fable, a problem/solution text about cheetahs, and a readers theatre selection about Memorial Day. Each text includes vocabulary, comprehension questions, an extension focusing on complex text, and an open-ended response.

Roman Readers Theatre
Readers theatre scripts are a great way to engage students in practicing fluency. They are happy to do repeated reading when they get to perform! These scripts are funny little plays that introduce students to aspects of Roman culture. You could do multiple scripts with a large group, or have the same group of students do several scripts over a period of days or weeks. Students can then compare the information in the readers theatre scripts to the information in the included article.

Under the Sea Nonfiction Texts
Four texts with comprehension questions and open-ended responses. I wrote these when my students were fascinated by octopuses. (Yes, it's octopuses and not octopi!) I became fascinated too! The culminating activity included with these texts would be lots of fun for summer school and could lead right into an aquarium visit.

Frolyc.com
If you have access to iPads, check out Frolyc.com. You can create activities and publish them to student iPads, have students create activities, or use activities that other teachers have created. (Search my name to find some of my activities.) This is a great time to play around with a great tool for the upcoming school year.

Updates
-I am working on Part 2 of the Daily Sentence Writing. By the time I am finished, there will be more than 20 weeks of sentence activities to help students compose, imitate, and chunk sentences.
-Other plans for the summer include updating the Visualizing activities, adding a new unit on analyzing stories, and finishing a reading intervention that incorporates United States geography. Leave a comment if you would like something to be a priority!