It's finally summer, even if the weather doesn't always quite catch on. It's time to bring some fun and excitement into your learning environment - it's time to enhance your continuous provision! Keeping your class entertained and inquisitive during the summer months can be a challenge, but with the right activities, you can create an environment that promotes exploration, creativity and learning. Here are some fun continuous provision ideas that are perfect for the summer season!
1. Summer Continuous Provision Maths Area
Your class will be drooling as they practise addition with this fun hands-on ice cream activity! Children choose an addition sentence, place the correct number of scoops of ice cream (pom poms) in each of their (brown paper) cones and add to find the total. With such an enjoyable way to practise, they'll master their addition facts in no time! You'll also find a great range of differentiated summer addition and subtraction games in the online shop. Why not set them up outdoors?
2. Summer Shadow Art
This is a lovely outdoor activity which requires very little preparation time, just lots of sunshine! Lay out sheets of paper on the ground behind the children's favourite small-world toys. You may need to weigh down the corners if it's windy. Challenge the children to draw the outline of a toy's shadow before the sun moves! They can then use watercolours to paint their shadow drawing. Talk about how shadows are made and explore how their position and size change throughout the day.
3. Summer Outdoor Water Play
Set up a water tray outdoors with containers, pans, egg cups, bottles and measuring cups for exploring volume and capacity. Teach your class to compare the capacity of containers and to measure using non-standard measures. Children can use water (or sand, rice, marbles, etc.) to find out which container holds more, and which holds less or to measure the capacity of different containers. You'll find capacity activity cards (complete with poster and recording sheets) in the No Worksheets Allowed shop.
4. Summer Continuous Provision Small World
An under-the-sea scene is fairly easy to set up and a great way to enhance your continuous provision! Use blue fabric to create the sea. You can add some yellow fabric to create an island or beach. Rocks, pebbles and shells will make the scene even more realistic! You can buy plastic or wooden sea creatures to complete the set-up. An under-the-sea small world scene is sure to capture children's imaginations and encourage them to build wonderful storylines! Find more ways to provide small world play on a small budget here.
5. Summer Construction Area
Enhance your construction area with laminated pictures of summer structures. Encourage children to use the photos to help them build small or large-scale models of things like sandcastles, a beach hut, a lifeguard station, a hotel or a plane. Can they design their model first, listing what they will need and planning how to make it? When the children have made their models, they could measure them using standard or non-standard measurements.
6. Summer Phonics/Literacy/English
Why not put some phonics readers outside? Find a shaded area, put out some beanbags and then add a basket of books. Being outside promotes a sense of well-being and has a calming effect, so it's the perfect place for some relaxed reading time! Children could also practise writing their tricky words using water and a paintbrush on the ground. How long will it take before the words evaporate? You'll also find summer-themed phonics games and writing mats in the online shop.
7. Summer Role Play
Transform your role-play area into a campsite, complete with a tent, sleeping bags, chairs and maybe even a guitar for some singing around the campfire! Children will love to play and engage in imaginative camping-themed scenarios. Alternatively, you could create a travel agents, airport or beach. Whatever you decide on, make sure that you add plenty of writing materials so that children can experience writing for a purpose!
8. Shape Bubble Wands
Shape bubble wands are not only exciting but also help children to learn about shapes! Here's how to make them:
Make a pipe cleaner into a 2D shape and twist the ends together.
Loop another pipe cleaner around the bottom of the shape pipe cleaner. Twist where the pipe cleaners meet to secure. This is the handle for the bubble wand.
Thread beads onto the pipe cleaner handle. Fold the end up so that the beads don't fall off.
9. Euro 2024 Activities
If you have children in your class who adore football, then you need to kick off the Euros with the great range of football resources in the No Worksheets Allowed shop, including writing and phonics activities! Another idea you might want to try is to display a map of Europe on the wall so that children can find out where their favourite players and teams are from. Outdoors, provide some cones and footballs to ensure that your little footballers can practise their dribbling skills!
10. Playdough Ice Cream Parlour
Transform your malleable area into an ice cream parlour this summer! It's a brilliant way to encourage children to communicate with each other and develop their social skills. You will need sandpaper or stiff paper to make cones, different coloured play dough, an order form, ice cream tubs/old yoghurt pots, empty sauce bottles, ice cream scoops, a till and some money. Encourage your class to make posters, opening times, price lists and menus for your ice cream parlour!
By incorporating these fun continuous provision ideas into your classroom this summer, you can create an interactive and engaging learning environment that keeps children excited about learning all summer term! For the final week or two of the school year, make sure you take a look at '10 end of school year activities for the exhausted teacher'. It might just help you to crawl over the finish line.
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