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The 15 Best Summer Learning Workbooks for Kids

The 15 Best Summer Learning Workbooks for Kids

This list of top summer learning workbooks for kids provides something for every type of learner. Tailor summer learning to fit your child’s personality and interests with activities and a format that works for your family.

Evan-Moor’s wide selection of colorful activity books provides learning activities that support the most current standards, while sparking children’s curiosity with interesting themes and topics. You can find skill-specific books to provide review or to challenge your child, or cross-curricular practice that is already paced for summer learning fun! Evan-Moor workbooks have clear directions and follow a consistent format, which makes it easy for children to complete independently.

Check out the best summer learning workbooks below to keep your children learning and growing all summer long.

#1 Recommendation for Summer Learning—Only 15 Minutes a Day

Daily Summer Activities is a great summer learning solution if you are looking for consistent daily practice in just 10–15 minutes a day. These colorful workbooks help your child transition to the next grade level with daily activities that review essential skills across subject areas, including reading, math, writing, spelling, and geography.

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With just one or two activities per day over a 10-week period, Daily Summer Activities helps to keep skills sharp without getting in the way of vacation time. And, a weekly reading log will motivate your child to read during the summer. Fun reward stickers are included for grades PreK–5.

Take the guesswork out of summer learning with the paced practice in Daily Summer Activities! Grades PreK–8

Daily Summer Activities books won the 2020 Parents’ Picks Award for Best Educational Products for Preschool and Elementary Kids.

Download free sample units for Daily Summer Activities here.

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The Jumbo Workbook for Summer Review

Top Student jumbo workbooks for grades PreK–6 provide more than 350 pages of activities to keep kids challenged and excited as they strengthen their skills in every subject area. These books work great as summer review and include these topics: math, science, reading, spelling, grammar, vocabulary, writing, social studies, computer science, SEL, and STEM. Select the grade level that your child just completed, for practice and review of skills all summer long!

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Top Student provides an in-depth review of skills that complements Daily Summer Activities. Click here to see a suggested “Week-at-a-Glance” for incorporating Top Student activities in a summer learning schedule.

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Top Student activity books won the 2020 Parents’ Picks Award for Best Educational Products for Preschool and Elementary Kids.

Brain Games For Kids

Brain Games and Activities provides screen-free fun to boost critical and creative thinking skills! Keep kids engaged with activities that include logic and reasoning, language and word play, and more. Each book includes: sticker activities, audio support for problem solving, and over 80 brain games. Games include: puzzles, mazes, graphs, hidden pictures, tongue twisters, and more!

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Skill-Specific Practice for Grades PreK–6

Whether you’re looking to support your child in a specific skill area or to accelerate learning, the Skill Sharpeners workbook series for grades PreK–6 provides the perfect combination of skill practice and fun to spark kids’ interest! Select a topic in your children’s favorite subject area or an area they could use some extra practice, and watch their skills grow. Each Skill Sharpeners workbook includes a free downloadable teaching guide with additional lessons and teaching tips to enrich your child’s learning home.

Skill Sharpeners: Math workbooks encourage children to practice and review math concepts they have already learned. The creative activities practice important grade-level math concepts and improve children’s math fluency, number sense, and reasoning skills. Each workbook includes a free downloadable teaching guide with additional hands-on activities and teaching tips for learning at home.

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Skill Sharpeners: Spell and Write workbooks help children build confidence in writing. The colorful activities support written language skills. Activities include practice of grammar and punctuation, vocabulary, creative writing, and spelling. Each workbook includes a free downloadable teaching guide with additional activities and tips.

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Skill Sharpeners: STEAM activity books integrate science, technology, engineering, art, and math to create meaningful learning opportunities for kids! The real-world topics in these STEAM workbooks connect learning to the environment, earth, people, and cultures, and inspire children to solve real problems related to sun safety, water conservation, wildlife, and more! If your child prefers hands-on learning, these books are a great fit. The open-ended questions and problem solving capture children’s interest and keep them thinking and learning long after the activities are over. Each workbook includes a free downloadable teaching guide with additional activities and tips.

Download free sample units for Skill Sharpeners: STEAM here.

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Skill Sharpeners: Geography is the winner of the Mom’s Choice Gold Seal Award for the best family-friendly products! These colorful activity books excite children to learn about the world around them and practice cross-curricular skills that integrate current geography standards. Each geography topic includes nonfiction reading selections, comprehension questions, vocabulary practice, writing prompts, and authentic activities that bring the concepts to life.

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Skill Sharpeners: Grammar and Punctuation helps children improve their writing while learning important grammar and punctuation rules. These colorful activity books make language skill practice fun with interesting themes, a variety of activities, and word games!

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Real-World Writing for Today’s Kids includes nine creative writing units that help children practice real-world writing. Plus, each unit includes engaging art and hands-on activities that demonstrate how writing is used to solve problems, express ideas, inspire, and help people. The colorful illustrations provide fun and simple writing exercises to show children how diverse and innovative writing in today’s world can be.

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Animals: Amazing Earth Adventures and Activities: Take kids on an adventure, learning fun facts about animals around the world! Amazing photos, mazes, step-by-step drawing, dot-to-dots, and more fun educational activities are included in this exciting activity book. Brain games, stories, step-by-step drawing, and art projects are featured throughout the book. Available for ages 4-11.

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Financial Literacy and Life Skills for Kids: In this exciting activity book, your child will connect math concepts to real-world learning with financial literacy and life skills activities. Topics include spending, saving, using banks, credit cards, and more! Relatable stories, engaging worksheets, and hands-on activities provide kids with information and experiences that help them understand how money works.

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Little Learner’s Delight: For PreK–1 Students to Develop Fundamental Skills

Listen and Learn Alphabet includes fun alphabet stories and activities that help children learn to read! This colorful workbook supports early reading skills with audio read-alouds and phonics games that practice alphabet letters and sounds. Creative activities, art projects, and stickers get children excited to practice and learn alphabet letters.

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Smart Start: Read and Write is a wonderful activity book to help young children learn to read. The activities review important alphabet letters and sounds. The audio read-aloud stories and activities introduce short sentences and provide fun practice activities to help early learners learn their letters and numbers. Recipient of the 2020 Parents’ Picks Award for Best Educational Products for Preschool and Elementary Kids, the Smart Start: Read and Write series provides engaging reading experiences that encourage children to become life-long readers. Grades PreK–1

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Smart Start: Math Stories and Activities is a great workbook to help your child learn and practice counting and writing numbers. Colorful activities help children practice patterns, measurement, shapes, addition and subtraction, and more. The audio read-aloud stories included in every unit help children recognize math in the world around them with real-life examples. Grades PreK–1

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Smart Start: Phonics and Spelling gives early learners a reading boost with colorful activities, audio stories, and stickers. Recipient of a 2023 National Parenting Product Award, these engaging activity books help children build positive early learning experiences with beginning reading. Children will practice beginning letter sounds, learn important spelling patterns, and read short stories with beginning word families.

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The Surprising Benefits of Handwriting for Kids and Tips for Parents to Teach It

The Surprising Benefits of Handwriting for Kids and Tips for Parents to Teach It

In today’s online world with so many ways of capturing language, handwriting might seem outmoded. However, handwriting has a huge benefit that may not be obvious. It is a key element in other parts of language literacy, such as reading and spelling. In fact, the act of forming letters helps the brain develop. It strengthens recognition of letters and their sounds. Handwriting connects muscle memory with what we see and hear. Processing letters by forming them with our hands, physically, helps solidify words in our brain.

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Why is Handwriting So Important?

Handwriting practice is useful for much more than handwriting. The motor control used in the fingers, hand, and arm while writing transfers to other physical skills that children may need, such as using buttons or tools; playing a cards, a musical instrument, or a video game; tying shoelaces; or braiding hair. In addition, most arts and crafts and some sports rely on hand control. A wide range of professions, such as electrician, mechanic, baker, dentist, or surgeon require manual dexterity as well.

Both cursive and printing increase retention of information over typing, and both make the brain ready for deeper learning. Every part of the brain is engaged in handwriting, which requires recognition, recall, spatial skills, and muscle coordination.

Brain cross-talk

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How to Teach Your Child Handwriting

Like most learning, handwriting happens in stages. The youngest learners are learning to control a pencil and make intentional marks. Kids naturally want to doodle, make pictures, and imitate adults. Channeling their scribble energy into tracing or completing pictures makes repetition fun.

Practice makes progress!

  • Use handwriting practice sheets to learn the different strokes needed to make letters.
  • Once your learner has basic control, challenge him or her to practice tracing, completing, or writing funny or meaningful words and names in fun tasks.
  • Encourage your child to say each letter’s sound while writing it to reinforce the sound-symbol relationship and say each whole word at the end.
  • After completing a sentence, have your child read it, or read it aloud yourself to reinforce that writing is communication, just like talking.
Teaching Cursive Handwriting

Just like learning to print, it is helpful to practice the strokes or shapes used to make cursive letters.

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  • The next step after strokes are familiar is to practice cursive letters. As with manuscript letters, grouping cursive letters that start the same way or have the same strokes can be very efficient.
  • An additional step for learning cursive is the joining of the letters. Since the letters don’t start and end in the same places, it’s important to focus on the joining of letters into words.
  • Using a handwriting cursive workbook with silly sentences or fun facts makes practice a breeze.

Additional Handwriting Tips for Parents

  • Get unlimited use out of each handwriting practice sheet that you use by putting it in a clear plastic sleeve. Have your child write with a dry-erase marker on the plastic sleeve. Wipe off the writing afterward with felt and insert another page.
  • Encourage a consistent, comfortable grip. Your child’s hand should be relaxed and not pressing too hard on the paper. Keeping the pencil point sharp also helps keep the pressure appropriate.
  • To strengthen and improve your child’s fine motor skills and dexterity, have your child pick up paper clips, toothpicks, cotton balls, or coins; cut shapes out of paper; or knit or crochet.
  • Tilt the paper to the left for right-handers and to the right for left-handers. Make sure children can see what they are writing and can move their hand across the page easily.
  • Left-handers should adjust the strokes for cross pieces, such as in t, f, and some capital letters, so that they pull the pencil toward their writing hand.
  • Some tools can help beginning writers:
    • for grip: A rubber grip slides onto the pencil and guides finger placement.
    • for posture: A slant board keeps the paper at a good angle to discourage slouching.
Fun Game and Activity Ideas
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  • Augment current games: Get more out of any standard word-based commercial game by offering players additional game points for writing out any words they form.
  • Sidewalk/sand art: Have your child brainstorm words to illustrate or positive words of encouragement. Give your kids chalk and to write the words on the ground and decorate them. Or if you are at the beach or have a sandbox, have them write and draw in the sand.
  • Air writing: Play charades but write a word in the air, one letter at a time, instead of acting out words. The “writer” indicates how many letters are in the word and then draws each letter in the air as players guess each letter and the word as well. The winner of the round becomes the next “writer.”
  • Foggy mirror message: After a shower or bath, have your child write a word or short message in the fog on the mirror.
Additional Resources:

For full-color activity books with handwriting practice sheets, check out Evan-Moor’s Handwriting Fun and Handwriting Fun! Cursive.

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For a classroom or homeschool reproducible resource, check out the all-in-one Handwriting: Manuscript and Cursive practice book and e-book.


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Kathy Jorgensen has been an educator most of her life, starting as a peer tutor in second grade and tutoring her way through high school and college. After teaching grades 2 through 12, she spent two decades editing standardized tests. Kathy happily returned to her teaching roots, providing instruction and practice in Evan-Moor’s math and science products. When she’s not polishing words on the page, Kathy is flitting down the dance floor indulging her passion for Scottish country dancing as a dancer, choreographer, and teacher.


 

8 Fun Writing Activities to Inspire Young Authors (Grades 4-6)

8 Fun Writing Activities to Inspire Young Authors (Grades 4–6)

Every kid is a natural storyteller, but many struggle to get their pencils to paper. A great writing activity is one that inspires kids to write down their big and wonderful ideas—while also sneaking in essential writing practice!

Here are 8 fun writing prompts, games, and projects to help kids in Grades 4-6 get engaged and enthusiastic about writing.

1) Alphabet Autobiography

An autobiography tells the story of someone—and that someone is you! An alphabet autobiography is a unique way for students to share details about themselves.

Ask students to write the letters of the alphabet on the left-side of their page. Then, prompt them to write a sentence with a personal detail for each letter.

For example:

A is for apple pie. I make it every November with my mom for Thanksgiving!

2) Paired Dialogue

Pair up students, and ask them to share a piece of paper. Give each pair a starting line of dialogue. One student writes the first line of dialogue and passes it to the other student. The other student writes a second line in response, and then returns the paper to the first student.

Students can only “talk” on paper—not out loud! At the end, you can ask them to read their dialogue out loud.

Some starting lines:

• “Hold on, do you know how to drive this thing?”
• “Wait, what’s that in your bag?”
• “Why are you in that tree?”

3) A New Point of View

Ask kids to choose an inanimate object and imagine the world from that object’s perspective. Give your students the title, “Life as a _____.”

Some fun objects to write about include refrigerators, toasters, pencils, windows, and chairs… or anything that inspires kids to see the world through different “eyes.”

4) Restaurant Reviews

Writing that’s applicable to real life can encourage reluctant writers to pick up their pens. Ask your students to write a review of their favorite restaurant. Use these questions to get them started:

• What did they eat?
• What did they like?
• What didn’t they like?
• How did the restaurant feel?

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Learn more about our real-world writing activities here.

5) Nature Notes

Go on a walk in nature and compile “Nature Notes.” Encourage students to notice details around them using their five senses. Try using questions from the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding exercise:

• What are five things I SEE?
• What are four things I HEAR?
• What are three things I can TOUCH?
• What are two things I SMELL?
• What is one thing I TASTE?

6) Letters to Your Future Self

Ask students to write to themselves in the future. Seal up their notes, and then return their letters to them at the end of the school year.

Ask them to answer:

• What are you grateful for right now?
• What are you excited about?
• What do you think will change this year?
• Write three predictions.

7) Local Hero Biographies

6 Steps to Teach Students How to Write a Biography

Ask students to write a biography of an unexpected local hero, like the cheerful barista at the coffee shop. Discover our 6 steps to teach kids how to write a biography here.

8) How-To Directions

Everyone likes to give directions about their favorite activities! Ask students to write “how-to” paragraphs about:

• How to Clean a Room
• How to Clean a Pet’s Cage
• How to Make an Ice-Cream Sundae
• How to Eat a Potato
• How to Make a Friend
• How to Grow a Garden
• How to Tell a Joke

Download our free printables to help your students write a “how-to” paragraph.

Writing Fabulous Sentences & Paragraphs, Grades 4-6

Most of the time, kids just need a starting point to get into the writing spirit. If you can engage your kids in a writing activity or project that lights up their imagination, their pencils are guaranteed to dance across their page.

Want more writing activities? Writing Fabulous Sentences & Paragraphs, Grades 4-6 features lively, creative, and scaffolded lessons to help young students become strong and confident authors.


Monika Davies

Monika Davies is a freelance author of over 60 books for kids and a writing workshop facilitator for adult-sized writers. She’s passionate about writing and creating learning material that is playful, informative, and sparks curiosity for all readers.