Happy summer!! Lucy of The Speech Express and I have compiled this list of summer-themed activities including digital games and book read-alouds pre-sorted by age.
These activities include sub-themes like 4th of July, ice cream, lemonade, the pool and the beach! At the bottom of this post you will also find a list of summer-themed digital short videos.
If you're not doing ESY or therapy this summer, these can still be used during sessions at the beginning of the school year. Note that the vast majority are free but there are a handful of great paid resources mixed in. Also note that any of my blog posts may contain affiliate links.
Looking for additional themed activities? Bookmark this blog post that I compiled with the fabulous Lucy of The Speech Express (@the_speech_express): The Ultimate List of Themed Speech & Language Activities.
4th of July Activities
Book Read-alouds:
Daniel's First Fireworks book read-aloud on YouTube
Apple Pie 4th of July book read-aloud on YouTube
My Fourth of July book read-aloud on YouTube
Fourth of July Mice book read-aloud on YouTube
The Night Before the Fourth of July book read-aloud on YouTube - good for retelling story in sequence, answering basic wh and critical-thinking questions (ex: Why? How can you tell? How do you think they feel?)
How to Make a Cherry Pie and See the USA book read-aloud on YouTube
Games & Miscellaneous
Free 4th of July Picture Scene Boom Card Game - use to work on prepositions, direction-following, vocab, describing, and more
Free 4th of July Bingo Boards - use for naming to description, cross off items as they’re named
Free 4th of July Facts Boom Cards by SpedEdLove - great for basic listening comprehension/recall
4th of July Coloring Pages on Hello Kids
Virtual 4th of July Parade on YouTube
-Name items that are red, white, and blue to work on categorization
Activities for Older Students:
Why We Celebrate the Fourth of July video on YouTube - great for defining tier two vocab, answering comprehension/recall questions, includes photos/video vs. clipart
10 Things You Didn't Know About Independence Day video on YouTube - includes trivia questions (you can pause and discuss answers)
Top 5 Things You Didn't Know About Fireworks video on YouTube
Independence Day video from PBS Learning Media on YouTube
4th of July Jokes on imom.com - great for explaining multiple meanings, sound-alike words, and word relationships
The 4th of July Facts by Kids Konnect
7 Myths About the 4th of July on beliefnet
History of the 4th of July Article on History.com
4th of July Crossword Puzzle on allfreeprintable.com
4th of July Photos on Pixabay - use for describing, comparing/contrasting, formulating a sentence given a target word
What is Your 4th of July Anthem Personality Quiz on Playbuzz (song plays at the end!)
U.S. President Personality Quiz on Nat Geo Kids
-Compare/contrast the American flag with flags from other countries
Summer Activities for Younger Students
Book Read-alouds:
Splat the Cat Scream for Ice Cream book read-aloud on YouTube
Groovy Joe Ice Cream and Dinosaurs book read-aloud on YouTube
Curious George Goes to an Ice Cream Shop book read-aloud on YouTube
Olivia Opens a Lemonade Stand book read-aloud on YouTube
Splat the Cat and the Lemonade Stand book read-aloud on YouTube
The Crabby Crab book read-aloud on YouTube, also available on Education.com
Pete the Cat - Pete at the Beach book read-aloud on YouTube
The Truth About My Unbelievable Summer book read-aloud on YouTube - great for making inferences, retelling the story with elementary schoolers
Digital Games:
Make an Ice Cream Game on ABCya
Free Create Your Own Ice Cream Boom Cards by Teacher Kimmy
Monster Sundae Shop Boom Cards by Speech Safari for direction-following, describing with attributes
Donkey Hodie Donkey's FroYo Stand on PBS Kids - extremely motivating, great for direction-following, sequencing ingredients, and describing
Lemonade Stand Game on Nick Jr
Elmo and Grover’s Lemonade Stand on Sesame Street
Language Lemonade Stand Boom Cards by Speechable Moments - includes language activities like sequencing, guessing the lemonade stand customer from a description, problem-solving and listening for absurdities
Balloon Pop game (with fish and water) on Toy Theater - great for taking a quick break between activities
Pinkalicious Splashtastic Beach Day on PBS Kids - includes several beach-themed mini games perfect for requesting, describing, expanding utterance length, and more
Abby’s Sandbox Search Sesame Street game
Daniel Tiger Sandbox Game on PBS Kids
Pretend Play PowerPoint game by Spiffy Speech - choose characters and vehicles, pretend to pack a suitcase and then travel to the beach, great for virtual social skills groups
Free 3 In a Row Summer Boom Cards by PlayLearnTalk
Free Beach What Do I Need? Boom Cards by MsTonisSpeechTools
Other Activities:
How to Make Ice Cream video on YouTube
Daniel Tiger Drops His Ice Cream video on PBS Kids
Arthur An Ice Cream Experiment video on PBS Kids
Peg and Cat Lemonade Stand video on PBS Kids
Pinkalicious Lemonade Stand video on PBS Kids
Daniel Tiger Mad at the Lemonade Stand video on PBS Kids
Free No Print Lemonade Language Activities on TpT by Sensory Speechies - describing, expanding utterance length, location concepts
That’s Silly Beach Scene from Highlights - spot what’s wrong with the picture, works great as a green screen background!
Beach Coloring Pages from Super Coloring - color online using annotate or the coloring tools provided
Sticker Book Scene: Oceans! by The Speech Express - these super fun, no prep pages allow students to place clip art stickers on an ocean background to create a digital picture! Students can describe each animal or object they want placed in the scene and then use prepositions to describe where in the scene they want their sticker placed! This simple activity is great for targeting just about any goal.
Sink or Float Video by PBS Kids - great for making predictions
Summer Activities for Older Students
Let's Talk About Summer Activities from Life Skills 2 Learn on YouTube
Let's Talk About Summer Jobs from Life Skills 2 Learn on YouTube
Let's Talk About the Summer Olympics from Life Skills 2 Learn on YouTube
Ice Cream in a Bag Recipe includes written instructions, a video, and photo sequencing cards! Use virtually for reading comprehension, retelling/sequencing or rewriting the recipe or follow the recipe during in person sessions!
Virtual Tour - Ben & Jerry’s Factory on YouTube
Nouns and Verbs Ice Cream Game on ABCya
Ice Cream Personality Quiz on Nat Geo Kids
Fun Facts About Ice Cream - use for reading comprehension, compare/contrast ice cream with mochi
Lemonade in Speech Activity by Spiffy Speech - including “sweet” or “sour” (expected/unexpected) social scenarios, photo sequencing cards for making lemonade, lemonade recipe for retell, and other language activities like lemonade-themed sentences with context clues
Chilled Paper Lemonade Craft on ABCya - work on narrating or retelling steps to create the craft
13 Lemonade Flavors You Have To Try This Summer on Spoon University - use for describing, comparing/contrasting, paraphrasing or making inferences about captions accompanying each picture, guessing ingredients based on the photo/description
Lemonade Facts for Kids on Kiddle - use for vocab and reading comprehension
A Surprisingly Disgusting History of Lemonade Stands - high-level reading comprehension for high schoolers
Lemonade Jokes - great for explaining multiple meanings and word relationships
Dude! wordless picture book read-aloud on YouTube - mute and pause on one page at a time. Great for telling the story, making predictions/inferences and answering other critical thinking questions, practicing emotions vocab
Summer Themed Mini Unit by The Speech Express - address all goals including artic, reading comprehension, vocabulary, critical thinking, figurative language
Truth or Myth Summer Mini Set by The Speech Express - great way to engage your mixed speech and language groups in upper elementary through high school! Students are given a statement (i.e. Most crabs have eight legs) and they must decide whether it is a truth or a myth
Summer Reading Comprehension Paragraphs by Spiffy Speech - great for stating the purpose, stating main idea, writing intro/conclusion sentences, finding the evidence, answering “why” questions (available on TpT and Boom)
Beach Themed No-Print Language Cards by The Speech Express - target just about ANY language goal with these digital cards! They are perfect for pairing with any activity or game and can be used for ALL of your groups right in a row - no prep, no sweat!
Funny Beach Jokes on YouTube - great for explaining multiple meanings, the difference between sound-alike words (ex: popsicle, possible), and word relationships
Beach Memory Game online on MEMOZOR
Summer MadLibs online on Amy’s Wandering
Swimming Pro Racing Game - great as a quick break between activities
Free Beach Sequencing Cards on TpT by The Spark Innovations - black and white so students can also color them in on screen
Ocean MadLibs online by Glow Worm Books
Mystery Doug ocean videos (various)
Disney Animals video: Sea Turtles - these species spotlight videos are great for vocab!
-Make a summer bucket list of activities or projects you want to do this summer (type into the white board)
-Pick a vacation destination and make packing list after researching activities, weather, etc. (type into the white board)
Summer Themed Short Videos:
View the Instagram post compiled with Lucy of The Speech Express here. These are all great for making inferences, answering basic and critical-thinking questions, narrating, and discussing emotions!
Indice 50 on YouTube - tells the story of a family who spends a day at the beach
Arturo & the Seagull - Arturo attempts to take a picture of a local seagull. Love the ending to this one!
Piper - a young bird must overcome its fear of the ocean in order to obtain food
Oktapodi - an octopus is on a mission to rescue its soulmate from becoming someone’s next meal
Taking Flight - a boy and his grandfather spend a summer day together
Shell Game - a hermit crab’s shell gets one too many upgrades!
Belly Flop - a persistent young girl attempts to learn how to dive
Swiff - an alien crash lands on earth and encounters a curious young boy
Trouble in Paradise - follows the daily adventures of Crabby, a small orange crab who lives on a tiny tropical island and is disturbed by an unexpected visitor
Make sure you're following me and The Speech Express on Instagram (@spiffyspeech and @the_speech_express) so you'll be notified of future posts like this one, speech freebies, toy/game recommendations, and giveaways!!
Have a great summer!!