summer vacation homework format

Summer homework may start as early as elementary school, but you don’t have to do it the way it’s always been done! Veteran educators like third-grade teacher Alycia Zimmerman have spent time thinking about how to make summer homework meaningful and interesting enough that students buy in—and even want to do it.  

Read on for Zimmerman’s summer homework game plan and ideas for how to make summer assignments more fun for everyone.

1. Try a New Student Meet and Greet

If possible, meet your incoming students before summer break (even if it’s virtual!) to instill the importance of summer learning.

At the end of the school year, coordinate with the teachers of your incoming students to swap classes for a period. Introduce yourselves to your future students and build excitement for the fun and challenging learning ahead and the very “grown-up” summer homework you will assign.

“We’ve been far more successful in instilling the importance of our summer assignments when presenting about it face-to-face rather than just sending a packet of directions home cold,” says Zimmernan. “The students sit on the edges of their seats as we talk about the importance of summer reading and our certainty that they will do everything they can to 'keep their brains healthy, pink, and strong’ over the summer.”

2. Emphasize the Importance of Summer Reading

Talk about the best summer assignment of all: diving into books!

Reading should be a treat, not a menial assignment, so Zimmerman doesn’t feel guilty about making reading the bulk of her summer homework. Here are some of her most effective strategies for promoting summer reading:

Have students fill out a log  to keep track of the books and other texts they read over the summer. It isn’t necessary to require a certain number of books or specific titles. Simply ask that they find books they love and spend lots of time reading them.

Have your current students write book reviews of their favorite titles to send home with your rising students. Invite your current students to serve as reading ambassadors and speak to the younger students about the importance and joys of reading. When coming from slightly older peers, the message is very well received.

And of course: Sign your students up for the Scholastic Summer Reading Program ! From May 9 to August 19, your students can visit Scholastic Home Base to participate in the free, fun, and safe  summer reading program . As part of the program, kids can read e-books, attend author events, and keep Reading Streaks™ to help unlock a donation of 100K books from Scholastic – distributed to kids with limited or no access to books by Save the Children. 

3. Share Fun and Educational Activities

Direct your students to fun (and educational) activities.

When considering other homework, the best options are activities that students will be motivated to do because they’re entertaining. 

Give your incoming students the “everything is better in moderation” speech so they understand that they shouldn’t play hours of computer games every day this summer. If possible, send them home with printable and book-based packs to polish their skills for the year ahead (you can even pair these with your own assignments): 

4. Connect Through the Mail 

Stay connected with your students over the summer through cards.

Giving incoming students the opportunity to connect with you and with each other can motivate them to complete summer assignments. Here’s one plan for connecting via letters:

Have your incoming students mail you a letter of introduction. Explain that you want to hear about their summer activities, their hobbies, their families, and anything special they want you to know before the school year begins.

When you receive letters from your students, send a postcard back with a brief response. Tell them a bit about your summer plan, and let them know you can’t wait to see them in the fall. 

Encourage them to write again!

You can also pair up students and have them write to each other over the summer. In September, they can bring their pen pal letters to class to display on the bulletin board.

Take advantage of everyone’s increasing familiarity with virtual resources by connecting online, too! Post a short video, article, or question once a week on your classroom's online platform, and invite both incoming students and rising former students to write their thoughts in the comments section. Be sure to moderate their comments and enjoy their back-and-forth dialogues as they engage with each other.

Get started by shopping the best books for summer reading below! You can find all books and activities at The Teacher Store .

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Get Your Summer Vacation Homework Done in Record Time

The summer vacation is here and students are thrilled. You are already thinking about those long days at the beach and about all the nice places you’ll see. Of course, let’s not forget all that beautiful time you will get to spend with your friends and your family! And who knows, maybe the love of your life is waiting for you just around the corner. You’ll have plenty of time to go look for him or her, right? The summer vacation is long. But wait; there is some trouble on the horizon. You didn’t expect to receive so much summer vacation homework. And all this summer homework has the potential to ruin your vacation. Each teacher has bent over backwards to assign as many school projects to you as possible. It’s like a contest; who manages to give you more work wins! But don’t worry about it; the truth is that you can easily get all that summer homework done in no time.

Table of Contents

Is summer homework illegal in any state, is summer homework beneficial to students, how to complete the summer homework in record time.

Well, we have heard this question a lot. Is summer homework illegal? Unfortunately for college and high school students, it is not. In fact, summer vacation homework is not illegal anywhere in the United States and the UK. It is entirely optional. You can refuse to do it, of course. But what happens is that you get back to school and you instantly get a couple of bad grades. And this is a very serious problem. It seems like your only option is to start working on that summer vacation homework. But don’t worry; it won’t keep you away from your friends and family for long. We will show you why this homework is beneficial and how you can complete all the assignments as fast as possible. Our aim is to help you get more free time and make the most out of your summer vacation.

Most students are asking us “is summer homework beneficial?” The reality is that summer vacation homework is actually of great benefit to students. You may not agree with this statement, but bear with us for a bit. Summer homework helps you remember all the things that were taught to you during the school year. If you forget most of these things, it will become a lot more difficult to learn more advanced classes in the following year. This is why it makes a lot of sense to work, at least for a bit, on remembering the things that you’ve learned over the past school year. You want to get good grades as soon as you get back to school, right? Well, summer holidays homework is the thing that can easily help you achieve this goal. And doing it is not at all difficult. Don’t worry; you don’t have to spend time each day working on school chores; far from it actually!

Let’s talk about the most common mistake college students make when it comes to summer homework. Most of them postpone working on these school assignments until the last week or two before the new semester starts. This means that they are left with too little time to work on their school projects which, in turn, means that they will never be able to do a good job. You have 3 months of free time, remember. Why not split all the work evenly between these months? You are not out of town or at the beach every single day, right? In other words, work one or two days maximum every week on your summer holidays homework. You will be able to get it done well ahead of time, while getting all the free time you need.

Getting Assistance Online

You may not have time for summer holiday homework. You may not be able to work on it. Who knows, you may be out of the country for the entire 3 months. Things happen, with this we do agree. You may even lack any kind of meaningful summer vacation homework ideas. If this is the case, all you need to do is hire an expert to take care of the matter for you. You have plenty of time to find a reliable, trustworthy academic writing company that can help you complete your school projects on time. These companies employ professional writers who are most often degree-holders. This means that they will be able to help you with your homework without any kind of problems. However, we urge you to at least read the homework and learn something from that writer’s work. After all, your main goal in school is to learn new things. And never let the opportunity to learn from pros slip. It doesn’t take much time to read the homework, but the amount of information you will learn will help you for sure during the next semester. Good luck!

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Should We Set Homework for the Summer Vacation?

An article by   Richard James Rogers   (Author of   The Quick Guide to Classroom Management )

Illustrated by   Pop Sutthiya Lertyongphati  

It won’t be long until our students (and us) will enjoy a long summer vacation. Sand, sea, sleep-ins and more time with the family. Sounds great!

In the UK, schools will close around mid-late July and reopen in early September. In America the summer holiday is much longer. Take New York , for example: Schools there will have their last day on June 26th, with students  returning on September 5th. 

Some teachers and parents would say that young people need this summer vacation to rest, have fun and basically enjoy being a kid. Others would say it’s too long to be away from school work entirely, and some learning should still be taking place.

I say that it all depends on the age and needs of the individual students. 

Start planning now!

During this article I hope to convince you that the summer vacation can be used to our advantage. Effective teachers have used the summer vacation for decades to act as a ‘buffer’ – a chance for slower students to catch up; for able, gifted and talented students to be pushed even more; and generally for getting a little more material covered so that the new academic year can start a little bit ahead. 

However, in order for me and you to effectively make use of the summer vacation (so that our students benefit), we must start planning now!

Case #1: The exam-preparation class

Let’s say that you’re taking a group of students through a two-year course (such as the IB Diploma, IGCSEs or ‘A’ – Levels). 

In an ideal scenario, those two years would be broken up as follows:

Year 1: Cover as much content as possible (at least 60% of the syllabus). Complete all coursework if the timetable permits.

Year 2: Finish off any remaining content. Allow as much time as possible for revision and past-paper practice.  

I believe that a good way to get our kids to be ahead of the game before Year 2 is to set them a significant piece of summer homework that is achievable, but not too onerous. 

I’ve found the following tasks to be effective (sometimes I combine them both together):

• Provide a booklet of notes and questions covering a topic that the students haven’t studied yet. When they get back to school after the summer, collect the booklets in. Check those booklets to make sure they are completed. Peer assess them and provide a one-week condensed summary of the topic in your lessons. Keep a record of who has and hasn’t scored well on the content, and intervene where necessary (e.g. with some after-school classes).
• Give students a test on a topic they learned over the summer. Provide notes for the students to revise from. Analyse the grades and help out any students who haven’t performed well.

When both of these techniques are combined together powerful and deep learning can take place over the summer. This can give our students a head-start in Year 2, giving them more time to do revision and past-papers. 

Case #2: Able, Gifted and Talented Students

These are students who we really want to push and encourage.

The summer vacation is a long-time to be away from formal education, and we don’t want these students to lose momentum or interest.

I’ve found that project work is particularly useful for these types of students. I usually set work based on the following procedure:

• Find out what the student is really interested in. What does she have a passion for? (For example: hip hop dancing)
• Think of ways that you can link your subject area to the student’s area of interest (For example: A project about vector mathematics as a model for the movement of a hip hop dancer during a routine)
• Discuss the project with the student. Make sure it’s relevant and deep. Ask the student to come up with ways to process the information and present the final output. Perhaps a stop-motion animation will work well. Maybe the student prefers to do a performance. Maybe a project portfolio will work well.
• Offer some kind of significant reward and recognition for the effort. Discuss the benefits (e.g. how this project will improve subject knowledge in a particular area). Speak with senior management about any material rewards that can be given (e.g. book tokens, medals, certificates or a trophy).
• Follow through and keep our promises: We must make sure that we honour our promises to these students. If we’ve promised a medal, then we must damn well make sure that the kid gets a medal. If we’ve set the work, then we must fulfill our professional duty by giving feedback. 

Case #3: Students who are falling behind

I’ve reached a stage in my career now where I just cannot allow poor performance to go unnoticed or unchallenged. It just bugs me too much.

For kids who haven’t been performing well, a good sit-down and chat with the students and their parents is an absolute essential before the summer, in my honest opinion.

Let’s say that you’ve had a biology student for one year and she just didn’t understand cells, human body systems and plant reproduction. Let’s say that this student failed all three tests for these topics.

If this student has not been given the opportunity to re-sit tests in these topics throughout the academic year, then it is our duty, I believe, to ensure that this material is covered over the summer. The student will have more time and, provided that the parents are aware and involved too, this should result in regular, productive revision and an increase in subject knowledge.

I’ve found the following techniques to work well for students who are falling behind:

• Analyse the assessment data for the whole academic year. Identify the area or areas in which the student is performing poorly.
• Look through all of the student’s work that you have to-hand. Is there any particular method or output that the student is really good at (e.g. website creation, drawing diagrams, making infographics, etc)?
• Meet with the student and his/her parents. Discuss a way forward over the summer that involves the student completing meaningful work on the topics of weakness through an output that appeals to the student’s preferred learning style.
• Check that the quantity of work is neither too much, nor too little
• Decide on a way to assess the work

When planned properly, our summer holidays can become times when our under-performing students really turn their lives around and gain a renewed sense of purpose and confidence. 

Schools not ‘out for summer’ (sorry).

The summer vacation offers a powerful way for us all to push our students forward, allow our students to cover extra material and address weaknesses for those students who are struggling. 

This all involves some planning, though. 

I don’t know about you, but when my students break up for the summer in one month’s time, I’ll be ready. I’ll have had my conversations with parents, kids and SLT and my students will know exactly what to do in the months approaching the new academic year.

We owe them that. 

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Author: richardjamesrogers

High School Science and Mathematics Teacher, Author and Blogger. Graduated from Bangor University with a BSc (Hons) degree in Molecular Biology and a PGCE in Secondary Science Education. Richard also holds the coveted Certificate in Mathematics from the Open University (UK). Richard is the award-winning author of The Quick Guide to Classroom Management: 45 Secrets That All High School Teachers Need to Know View All Posts

2 thoughts on “ Should We Set Homework for the Summer Vacation? ”

Hi Richard. I really enjoyed the summary / article and I’ve posted it to the whole school. Just a very simple and straight forward synopsis of what it takes to get something (student progress) from nothing (holidays). Thanks again, Ian

Thank you very, Ian. I’m really glad that the article was useful. Where is your school based?

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Should kids get summer homework?

by: Leslie Crawford | Updated: June 12, 2023

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Jill Notte’s daughter Sara is a straight-A student, and she’s taking five advanced-placement courses this fall. It’ll be her senior year.

This ambitious undertaking may prove Sara’s undoing — at least if the 17 year old wants to enjoy her summer vacation. Somewhere in between spending a week at a Girls State program, a month at the New Jersey Governor’s School of Engineering and Technology at Rutger’s University, and visiting a few potential colleges, Sara must complete the following workload before school starts:

• Read five novels for AP English • Read one book for AP History • Complete a packet of assignments and problems for AP Calculus • Complete a packet of assignments and problems for AP Chemistry • Write several summaries of scientific principles for Honors Physics

Oh, and her English teacher recommends that she attend Shakespeare performances at the local college to supplement the many plays she’s required to read as part of AP English. “I try to put a positive spin on it,” says Sara’s mother, Jill. “I told her, ‘Summertime’s a great time to read Shakespeare!'” But, admits Jill, it’s not so easy to put the same kind of “fun” spin on the stack of mind-numbing calculus and chemistry books hefty enough to take down a Yellowstone grizzly.

Forget languidly balmy weeks unwinding from the stress of an intensive school year. Goodbye, as well, to working her usual summer job as a lifeguard, which Sara unhappily has to forgo — along with the money she hoped to save for college. As her mother puts it, “Summer homework is a full-time job.”

A working vacation

Sara’s not alone. The oxymoronically named “vacation work” is on the rise. Sara’s older sister had only a few books to read over the summer when she was in high school — and that was just eight years ago. Jill, who like her daughters was a high achiever in the top five percent of her class, remembers completely homework-free summers.

Many parents remember their own childhood summers as true respites from school, devoid the rigor and rigidity of academic life. Summer was a sprawling mass of unstructured time that ranged from idyllic laziness to stupefying boredom to invigorating camps and family vacations, not scores of math worksheets, science packets, and lists of “good-for-you” classics that hardly qualify as light beach reads.

Harris Cooper, chairman of the department of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University and America’s leading homework scholar who co-authored the landmark meta-study on homework , says that while there exists no formal studies on the rise in summertime homework, he’s witnessed a particularly sharp increase over the past two years — probably a response “to high-stakes testing and accountability issues for schools.”

Just say no?

Some parents argue summer homework is nothing more than bland busywork that saps the joy and spontaneity from summer. So says Sara Bennett, founder of StopHomework.com . “Even if there is a summer slide, I don’t think homework is the solution,” Bennett says. “Kids don’t have enough downtime during the school year. I think they need that freshness during summer.”

Here’s a revolutionary approach for vacation purists who say kids deserve a good, old-fashioned summer free from intense brain-strain: Just say no. That’s what Bennett suggests a parent do in the fall if a child is averse to doing the packet. “I’d send it back and say, ‘I’m sorry, my child didn’t have a chance to do it.’ ” (A parental dispensation only possible for kids who haven’t entered the high-school pressure cooker where — as with Sara Notte — summer homework is graded and can directly affect a student’s chances to enter a top-tier university.)

Protecting young minds from melting

On the other side of the summer homework debate are the moms and dads who, when the school doors slam shut, ramp up the supplemental brain work, even if the teachers didn’t provide it themselves. Most parents, though, fall somewhere in the for-better-or-worse-summer-homework-is-here-to-stay camp.

So if the kids have to do it, can we at least be reassured that it’s a magic bullet to protect young minds from melting? “We can’t say that with any objective data,” Cooper says. “But we would make the assumption if students are continuing to flex their mental muscles over the summer, this would have a positive effect on how much material they retain when they return.”

No buy-in from the kids

“There definitely is a lag — I’m not denying that,” says Denise Pope, senior lecturer at the Stanford University School of Education and co-founder of Challenge Success , a research and student-intervention project. “I absolutely agree that three months is a long time to not do anything. That said, I’m not sure this idea of giving workbooks and pages and pages of handouts works.”

The reason it doesn’t work? “There’s not a buy-in from the [kids],” Pope argues. “In order for any learning to be retained, there has to be engagement on the part of the students.” Pope explains that students need the “ABCs of engagement,” which means they’re engaged affectively, behaviorally, and cognitively. “If they’re intrinsically motivated, then they’ll want to do it.”

“I know kids who get these huge 40-page math packets,” Pope says. “It’s because [teachers] want [kids], over time, to have systematic practice. The problem is that this requires an adult to monitor this kind of disciplined work. It’s not like a kid can do that on his own. So it puts a burden more on the parents.”

Year-round homework blues

So, alas, those nightly angst-ridden homework dramas that run from September through June now get year-round billing. The other problem, Pope says, is that summer homework packets (frequently put off until the last unhappy week before school begins), often seem to fall into an academic black hole once they’re turned in — with no feedback from teachers and no effect on kids’ grades.

As for the work that Pope’s three kids — ages 10, 12, and 15 — get handed at school’s end, she tells them, “‘I won’t bug you about this at all. I won’t be the police.’ We look at the assignments they get for the summer and I say, ‘How long do you think this will take? Do you want me to remind you to do it?’ ” But if they leave it until the tail end of the summer, Pope says, well, that’s their choice. It’s their vacation, after all.

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Summer Holiday Homework Ideas

Subject: Cross-curricular topics

Age range: 7-11

Resource type: Worksheet/Activity

Last updated

22 January 2024

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20 home learning ideas for the summer break. Tasks are varied, including: writing, math, creative and social-emotional skills.

Provide as a handout for children to select from. Why not challenge children to complete 3, 4 or 5 of their choosing?

Some tasks could be useful for new term display or presentation.

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Use with caution - in this current financial climate, this pack of homework ideas could potentially exclude families that do not go on holiday or have do not relationships with their (extended) families. Not all children have a 'good' summer break. For those that do, it is great.

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MS Word Cover Page Templates

Download, personalize & print, cover page designs for summer holiday homework.

Posted By: admin 29/06/2022

Schools are the institutes that transform pebbles into ornaments and shape raw minds to think about creativity and wonders. Children seek primary knowledge at nearby schools and are guided in a particular direction for choosing a career or field of choice. Every school follows a set of curricula that helps them stay on track.

Every school gives summer holidays of 2 to 3 months every year so that children can stay at home and avoid the heat. Students are responsible for completing assigned holiday homework so that they do not forget their course during vacations. Summer holiday homework is assigned to every student and is collected by the school when students return after the holidays. Homework is prepared by the school administration and is based on the course of upcoming classes for every student.

The cover page, also known as the title page, is the first page of any document. It provides details about the writer and the topic of the document. It is generally a part of every document and greatly influences the chances of reading that document. Summer holiday homework cover pages are bright and full of colors to draw the attention of kids and make it a fun activity for them. Homework does not only include coursework; it also includes puzzles and other fun activities for the kids.

The design of cover pages changes from grade to grade because lower-grade kids are not burdened with a lot of homework, so their task is mostly enjoyable and basic. Cover pages are designed by art teachers who take inspiration from the internet and incorporate several pieces of art to form a cover design. Many art teachers are creative and try to include designs related to homework to develop the interest of the children.

Some of the tricks for designing cover pages are given below:

• Different designs of cover pages may include colorful images of books, pencils, and other study material to focus on studies.
• Students in lower grades enjoy easy homework with relaxing exercises, while students in higher grades are assigned tough work.
• As compared to the homework, cover pages are full of colors and images that attract kids.
• Images on the cover design signify the contents of homework and allow children to enjoy it.
• Many designs include black-and-white images and ask children to color these images with the colors of their choice, thus giving them the freedom to design them themselves.
• Cover pages provide details about the grade and contents of the homework within the document.

Every part of an official document is crucial and should be designed with the utmost care. Cover pages are unusually designed to provide basic details about the document without opening it. Furthermore, the significance of homework cover page designs can be evaluated from the following points:

• Diverse cover pages attract students to also remember their school tasks while enjoying vacations.
• It helps parents engage their children with homework.
• Creative designs of cover pages allow students to be creative and act as inspiration
• The contents mentioned on the cover pages allow parents to decide if their children need extra help completing homework.

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