summer
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Flower Garden Activities for Preschool
Gardening is not one of my natural talents – but I’ve always wished that it was! Growing flowers offers so many amazing learning experiences, from patience and discipline to life cycles and plant science. It’s a staple in the preschool classroom, for good reason! Since actually growing beautiful flowers isn’t a strength of mine, I’ve created a number of printable activities to support children’s learning and understanding when it comes to this particular theme. All of these are available in the Preschool Ponderings TPT store. Click on the image to learn more.
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Ideas for Exploring Camping in the Classroom
One of my favorite things about camping as a learning theme is that there are so many ways for children to interact with the supplies, materials, and activities that are actually part of a real camping trip. It’s all very authentic, and even the youngest children appreciate that! It also lends itself well to spending a ton of time outside, which everyone wants after a long winter! Beyond setting up a dramatic play center, here are some ideas for helping children explore camping. Set up a tent. Tents are tons of fun to play in, but actually putting them up is where the learning happens – following directions, working together,…
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Printable Camping Activities for Preschool
Camping is one of my favorite summer activities, so it makes perfect sense that I’ve always loved sharing this topic in the classroom too. Camping supplies lend themselves perfectly to math an language activities, and it’s so fun to find authentic materials to supplement these activities. Here are my favorite camping activities for the classroom – all of these are printable and available HERE!
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Last Day of School Traditions
Our last day of school is tomorrow! When my daughter was in kindergarten the last day of school rolled around and I realized that I hadn’t planned for any fun traditions. For me, someone who LOVES holidays and celebrations, this was a massive problem. I quickly came up with a couple of things that work well for us and have been things my girl really looks forward to. Here are our last day of school traditions. I try to keep mornings the same – throwing a special breakfast or activity into our well-oiled routine would throw the whole day off. My daughter’s school always does a half day for their…
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End of the School Year Memories
The last couple of days of the school year always feel so hard to plan for – There isn’t really time to accomplish anything, and the learning has been accomplished, but you have to do something! I created this End of the Year Memory Book to give us something to work on together as we revisit all of the fun from the entire year. The great thing about this book is that it’s truly customizable. Each child can complete their own, or the class can do one together as a group with discussions about each prompt, Children can write or draw their answers, or do a combination of both. The…
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2025 Casual Summer Wardrobe
I have a deep love for summer clothing. It’s effortless and all about comfort, because let’s be honest, when its 94 degrees with 96% humidity, comfort is everything. These are the pieces that are making up my summer uniform this year (all links are affiliates).
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Summer Tote Bags on Amazon
I love a good tote bag – my collection may be a little out of control, BUT that doesn’t mean I don’t have my eye on a few more. Here are my favorite summer 2025 tote bags. All links are affiliates, click on the image for more info!
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Summer Family Night Activities
We lean into family nights HARD during the summer. Everything feels more relaxed and fun, so we take full advantage! If you’re looking for inspiration, here are some of our favorite family night activities. The great thing about many of these is that they can be a little spontaneous – which is really what makes summer fun!
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Summer Learning Supplies for an 8 Year Old
Every year I’ve tweaked the supplies that I gather for summer learning. When my daughter was in Kindergarten we used a ton of crayons, glue, and flash cards (see how I organized all of that here), now that she’s almost done with second grade, there are so many more notebooks, pencils, and books. Here’s what we’re using to keep her on track academically this summer (all links are affiliates). In the past I’ve printed specific worksheets for certain themes. That worked for us, but it also used a lot of ink and paper, plus I had to organize all of it. The workbooks help us focus on specific subjects, and…
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Summer Planning; What Works and What Doesn’t
Over the last couple of years I’ve learned so much about planning and structuring our summer days at home (see the post that I shared on Monday for a round up of ideas and inspiration)! From planning our days down to the hour to throwing out the plans and winging it, I’ve tried it all. Here are some things that have worked really well for us (DO’s), followed by some things that haven’t been so helpful (DONT’s). DO DON’T The most important thing that I’ve found is to know your kids and plan for what they need. My summer planning has changed every year because my daughter has grown and…
