With the right tools, summer can be a season of growth—especially when students stay engaged through writing, journaling, and storytelling. These 10 free summer learning activities offer meaningful writing practice to keep students engaged, strengthen grammar skills, and build writing confidence. Whether you’re a parent, caregiver, or teacher, you can use these activities to spark reflection, storytelling, and skill-building during the summer months.
While summer is filled with outdoor activities that often keep young people active, it should also include summer learning activities that keep students writing and working on grammar skills.
Research from the National Summer Learning Association shows that students can lose up to two months of academic progress over the summer. Writing-focused summer learning activities offer a simple way to retain literacy skills while allowing space for creativity and self-expression.
Summertime can be filled with adventures. Capturing those adventures through descriptive writing is a great way to keep students writing and thinking about language this summer.
Download this free worksheet and have students make different combinations of adjectives and action words this summer.
To extend the activity, ask students to illustrate their writing or act out their descriptive phrases—a great opportunity for kinesthetic and visual learners.
With this summer writing activity, students will pick a writing prompt and then write a letter about that topic. Have students use the letter template in the Letter Writing Prompt Activity to write their final draft.
These final letters will be a great "time capsule" of summer break that students can look back on when they return to the classroom.
Letter writing also fosters empathy and self-reflection—important social-emotional skills students can develop while practicing grammar, voice, and narrative structure.
Summer break is often filled with barbecues, late-night snacks, fresh watermelon, and cold treats. Have students write a short essay about their favorite summertime dinner using the printable The Perfect Meal worksheets.
The essay writing worksheets that are available for download will encourage students to focus on word choice and will provide an opportunity to practice outlining and composing short essays. To make this short essay writing activity especially fun for kids, the worksheets are made-up of the place setting elements that will be cut and assembled once the writing is complete.
Younger students can focus on describing taste, smell, and texture, while older students can be encouraged to include historical or cultural background of the meal.
Encourage your students or children to keep a summer journal. There are many benefits to journal writing, including providing individuals a space to write openly about their thoughts, struggles, experiences, and adventures.
To ensure students or children engage in different types of journal writing this summer, alternate between free writing and journal prompts. With journal writing prompts, students are provided a variety of questions and sentence starters to start their journal entries. Download a list of journal writing topics now.
Journal writing also supports emotional regulation and confidence—especially important during transitional times like summer. Encourage entries about nature walks, family traditions, or personal goals to build authentic connections.
Summertime provides ample time for young people to read books of interest, and to catch the “Reading Bug”. Whether you are a teacher or parent, a book review is a great way for kids to share what they are reading. Start by providing your student or child with a grade-appropriate book to read. Then establish the book review guidelines. Below are some suggested guidelines.
General Guidelines for Grades K–5
Students in grades K–2 will write a paragraph review of the book assigned to them to read. Students in grades 3–5 will write a multi-paragraph review of the book assigned to them to read.
In their writing, they must include the book's main character's name, the problem and the solution. Adding these elements in their book review will help you evaluate if they understood the text.
Want to add a challenge? Have them focus on handwriting and letter forming skills. Encourage them to improve letter formation and spacing. If your students are in the higher grade levels, have them focus on using commas correctly in their writing. Here are three common comma rules: 1) use a comma to set off a dependent clause from an independent clause; 2) use a comma before a coordinating conjunction, joining two complete sentences; 3) use a comma, or commas, to set off interrupters. Students could be assessed on their use and application of these three rules.
Want a second challenge? Assign students to read a book that has been turned into a movie. Once they have completed reading the book, have them watch the movie. Then students can compare and contrast the book with the movie using this free worksheet.
General Guidelines for Grades 6–12
Student will write a 250-word review of the book that they were assigned or that they selected to read.
Want to add a challenge? Have them focus on using commas correctly in their writing. Here are three common comma rules: 1) use a comma to set off a dependent clause from an independent clause; 2) use a comma before a coordinating conjunction, joining two complete sentences; 3) use a comma, or commas, to set off interrupters. Students could be assessed on their use and application of these three rules.
Want a second challenge? Have students in grades 6–12 write a movie review about a book they read that has been made into a movie. Click to download the Movie Review Writing Activity now.
Help your students stay sharp over the summer and download The Farm Editing Errors Activity. This summer story worksheet will get them practicing commonly confused words, agreements between nouns and verbs, and editing! Our free printable worksheet includes an answer key.
Consider making this a friendly competition: Who can spot the most errors before the timer runs out? Gamifying grammar makes it more fun and engaging.
Summer vacations can be filled with new experiences and discoveries. The following activity gives kids a chance to document the great places they visit, and the people they meet, by writing and drawing. This summer writing idea is appropriate for kids at all grade levels,
This activity also gives students practice in writing for real-world communication—an important skill in both personal and academic settings. Plus, saving these postcards creates a keepsake that encourages students to value their own writing.
Materials: Post Card Template, markers, crayons, or colored pencils, and a pencil or pen.
Parents, wherever you visit, have your child draw their most memorable site on one side of the post card template. Have them experiment with a variety of colors, capturing the descriptive elements of the vacation. On the other side of the post card, have your child write about that part of the vacation. Prompt your child to include key details, such as the date, time, and place.
Additionally, have your child include descriptive details about the vacation including who they are with, where they are staying, what they are eating, the changing weather, the scents they smell, and special memories they are making. The details should be specific enough so that in 10 years they can re-read the postcard and return to that specific moment. What a great way to capture special vacation memory!
Middle and high school students have a harder time buying into the importance of summer learning activities. This means educators and parents need to come up with unique ways to blend education and topics that appeal to teens! With the Editing Celebrity Tweets worksheets, students will read some of their favorite celebrities' tweets to find errors, correct them, and give reasons for their corrections.
This pop culture–infused activity promotes media literacy and sharpens editing skills in a format teens can connect with. Ask students to research how public figures influence language trends and reflect on tone and audience.
In addition to the these editing worksheets, Vocab Gal has created a Vocabularize Celebrity Tweets worksheets. With these vocabulary worksheets students will read some of their favorite celebrities' tweets and find ways to improve their vocabulary.
With this summer learning worksheet kids will combine writing with vocabulary. Use the Why Words Matter Vocabulary Activity to have students generate reasons why learning vocabulary words is important to them!
This reflection helps students connect vocabulary study to real-world communication. Have them consider how word choice impacts speeches, social posts, job interviews, or storytelling.
With these printable worksheets students will color a heart-shaped flag and then write about Independence Day based on a sentence starter. A sentence starter that kids could use is, "What are your favorite Independence Day celebrations?"
Pair this writing activity with a short lesson or video about the history of July 4th to build background knowledge. Encourage students to interview a family member about their favorite celebration to incorporate oral storytelling.
Hopefully, the summer learning activities above will help you integrate a bit more writing and grammar into the break. Help students avoid the "summer slide" by including writing prompts and writing activities into your plans.
These summer learning activities not only keep kids writing—they build voice, confidence, creativity, and academic momentum. Whether you're using these in summer school, tutoring, or at home, you're helping students strengthen core literacy skills in fun, low-pressure ways.
Looking for more ideas? Explore our full library of free ELA worksheets and printables to keep learning alive all summer long.