When it’s time to send students off for summer break, completing a bucket list can help them focus on what’s important to them this summer. It can also provide a way for parents to fill summer days as well as support students with some academic and enrichment activities.
After all, summer learning loss is real, so it’s important for kids to have a range of experiences during the summer months. Reading is important, as are experiences that build background knowledge. One tip for using these summer bucket lists: Pair up with the grade level above you to make a summer checklist something that students bring home while they’re in your grade, and bring it back in the fall so next year’s teachers can start the year by sharing what students did over the summer.
Here are seven printable ideas for summer bucket lists that you can use with students before sending them home for the summer break.
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Basic Summer Bucket List
Use this summer bucket list printable to have students brainstorm and write a list of things they want to accomplish over the summer. It may be helpful for students to brainstorm as a class, then write the list they take home with a combination of ideas from the main list and their personal additions.
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Sentence-Starter Bucket List
This summer bucket list printable is a combination to-do list and SEL activity with reflection built in. What do you want students to accomplish this summer? What do you want them to remember about themselves?
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3D Summer Bucket List
Print these on card stock and have students assemble their own buckets. Then, they can fill their bucket with the things they want to do. During the summer, students can draw one activity at a time until their bucket is empty.
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Summer Checklist
For older students, use this checklist to brainstorm ideas for what they’d like to accomplish during the summer. It’s OK for students to keep it simple: climb a tree, read three novels, set up a lemonade stand. Sometimes the simplest summer activities are the best.
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Picture To-Do List
If you work with younger students who are still learning to write, or if you work with students who use modifications to express their ideas, this list is a great way to have students plan ideas for their summer vacation using drawings or printed pictures. Students can draw their ideas, or cut and paste pictures for each to-do.
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Summer Bucket List and Coloring Sheet
Students can fill out their summer bucket list and when they’re done, they can complete the coloring page. Or they can take it home to color over the summer.
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Choose Your Own List
If you don’t have time to plan, or you want to send students home with lots of ideas, use this summer checklist. Students can take the list home and check off what they complete, or highlight the activities that are most interesting to them and focus on those.
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Want to encourage more summer reading? Download these summer reading printables.
