Plan Your Summer Learning Lessons for Any Subject

School’s out for summer! But that doesn’t mean learning has to stop. Whether students are relaxing at home, going on vacation, or leveling up in summer school, there are plenty of opportunities for them to engage in summer learning. 

We’ve curated a collection of ELA, writing, social studies, and science resources students can use at home or in the classroom this summer to keep their skills sharp, their minds open, and their interest piqued before next school year starts.

• Keep students’ ELA and writing skills sharp during summer learning
• Help students explore new places in social studies during summer learning
• Encourage students to flex their investigative muscles in science during summer learning

[Keep students’ ELA and writing skills sharp during summer learning](id-ela) 

Explore ready-to-go lessons, projects, and skill-review resources to help students practice what they learned and prepare for next school year over the summer:

Dive into interesting and engaging topics with research projects

Give students the chance to explore topics that interest them with a summer learning research project. From pop culture to the environment, they can try projects like:

• Famous musicians and their impact
• Human impact on the environment
• Impact of climate change

Practice analysis and critical thinking with debate and discussion lessons

How can you build analysis and critical thinking skills in summer school? By hosting a debate on topics that students care about. Try one of these topics to get them crafting arguments:

• Do zoos help or harm animals?
• Are esports really sports?
• Do the benefits of artificial intelligence outweigh the risks?
• Is space exploration a good use of resources?

Discover the ways ELA appears in the real world

ELA doesn’t just live on the page in novels or poems. It’s alive in the world around us. Show students how ELA themes impact the real world with lessons on topics like:

• How Taylor Swift’s music inspired a college literature course.
• The hidden and not-so-hidden literary references in the Legend of Zelda video games.
• Why art and language are such powerful tools for healing and connection.
• Where you may use writing outside of school, like asking animal control if you can keep a unicorn in your yard.

Try an ELA lesson created by a fellow teacher

Looking for other engaging lessons created and classroom-tested by teachers? Try one of our summer learning teacher-made text sets, like:

• Lemonade Stands: Compare and Contrast
• Using Music to Manage Emotions & Improve Health
• Kid Inventors Changing the World
• Animals and Lessons in Fables… Oh my!
• Integrating Texts: Twists, Turns, Ins, and Outs of Amusement Parks

Ask students to take the 30-Day Write Prompt Challenge

Help your students flex their writing muscles this summer and share their thoughts and analysis on a variety of topics by posing a 30-Day Write Prompt Challenge for any grade band:

Elementary prompts

Elementary students (Grades 3-5) can practice a variety of writing skills across genres and topics with sample prompts like:

• Which TV, movie, or book character do you wish were real and why? Describe what you would do for the day with your favorite character.
• Write a letter to a friend or classmate. Include: 1 update about your life; 2 fun facts (about anything!); and 3 questions for them.
• Imagine designing a new city. What would you include in it? What would it need? How would you convince people to move there?

Middle school prompts

Middle school students (Grades 6-8) can practice different types of writing with sample prompts like:

• Write a short story that includes: dialogue, a classmate, one million dollars, and magical shoes.
• Do you believe in luck? Are you superstitious? How so? If not, why do you think some people are?
• Write your favorite quote or song lyric and include it as the first line of a poem or short story. Finish the poem or short story.

High school prompts

High schoolers can practice creative and expository writing with sample prompts like:

• Write a detailed description of a place as if it were a real person. Describe its traits: personality, style, attitude, class, and philosophy. Is it relaxed and laid back or dark and dangerous? Is it friendly to newcomers, or is it exclusive?
• Describe two different characters from two different texts you’ve read. Then, imagine they meet. What would they say and do? Would they get along? Why or why not?
• Does social media represent individuals authentically? Explain with examples.

Explore more writing activities for summer learning

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Want to share writing lessons outside of the prompt challenge? Try one of these activities:

• Encourage students to practice argumentative writing by comparing esports to real-life sports.
• Lean into creative writing with a 'how to write a fable' project.
• Visit the Newsela Writing library for premade activities across all subjects—not just ELA! Sort by grade, genre, and state rubric to give your students the targeted practice they need to keep their writing skills sharp this summer.

Use the standards and skills review to check progress and retention 

Make sure your students continue to build literacy skills over the summer and review what they learned with text sets and resources that cover:

• Comparing and contrasting informational and literary texts.
• Synthesizing informational and literary texts.
• Analyzing multimedia in informational and literary texts.

[Help students explore new places in social studies during summer learning](id-ss)

Some of your students and their families may go on vacation this summer, and others may stay home. But no matter their circumstances, they can take a virtual vacation to any state capital or Washington, D.C., using Newsela Social Studies!

Each virtual vacation includes a Google Map of museums, landmarks, or historically significant locations within a state capital, along with a collection of articles, videos, and other resources that students can use to explore the history and significance of each one. 

Students traveling in real life (IRL) this summer can visit the places marked on the Google Map to explore the topics more deeply. Those visiting virtually can use Newsela’s search feature to look up more information on the topics that interest them or the state they visited.

After students take their vacation, ask them to complete a narrative assignment on Newsela Writing and answer the prompt: “What is something you learned during your vacation (virtual or IRL) this summer, and what did it teach you about the history and culture of the United States?”

Are you a Newsela Lite user? Your students can still participate in this activity by visiting our nation’s capital, Washington, D.C.! If you’re not a Newsela customer yet, sign up now to start your 45-day free trial!

Encourage students to flex their investigative muscles in science during summer learning

Get students excited about exploring the world around them with these engaging summer learning science activities:

Take the 30-Day Science Challenge

Help students think like scientists by posing a 30-Day Science Challenge. Throughout one month of summer they can complete tasks like:

• Develop a new recipe.
• Record a cloud journal.
• Measure the strength of different materials.
• Solve an everyday problem.

Go on a virtual field trip to an interesting place

Perfect for rainy summer days, invite students on a virtual field trip to interesting places around the country—and even out of this world! They can visit:

• Zoos
• Aquariums
• National parks
• Farms
• Science museums
• Factories
• Nature
• Outer space

Puzzle through the everyday mysteries in our world

Science is always at work, even if we don’t realize it or see it happening. Students can explore everyday mysteries during the summer like:

• What’s happening in your body while you sleep?
• Why do mosquitoes bite?
• Why does sugar taste so good?
• Why is the ocean so salty?
• Why don’t I fall out of a roller coaster?

Dive into fun summer experiments with seasonal STEAM activities

Hands-on science is a student favorite! Share some summer and holiday-themed STEAM activities with your students like:

• Bath fizzers for Mother’s Day.
• Tool boxes for Father’s Day.
• Patriotic experiments for the Fourth of July.
• Food fun with lemonade and ice cream.

Review science core ideas this summer 

Help students learn and review important skills across physical, earth and space, and life science this summer. You can find lessons on topics like:

• Interacting forces.
• Weather and climate.
• Characteristics of organisms.

Explore all of Newsela's summer learning resources

Want help creating take-home packets for your incoming or outgoing students before they leave for summer break? Need quick lessons to add to your summer school plans? Check out Newsela’s Summer Learning Resources Kit. 

It includes many of these and other interesting ELA, social studies, science, and writing activities to keep students engaged and learning over the next few months. You can also access teacher resources to help you share this information with your students, and explainers for parents and caregivers to help them support their students’ learning growth this summer.