Summer Themed Resources for ESY

Add some fun to your ESY classroom (whether it is in person or virtually) while incorporating summer themes into your classroom! Everything is more fun summer themed!



Extended School Year is designed for students in order prevent regression and continue practice of their IEP goals over summer break. Also, it's important to keep working on those social skills! So keep your classroom routine similar to what you do during the regular school year, but it's also okay to be a little bit more relaxed and have some more fun too.



Morning Meeting


Continue with your morning meeting routine. Don't have one yet? Check out part 1 and part 2 of my morning routine while I was in the classroom.

This digital morning meeting is great for both in the classroom with a smart board or projector and for distance learning as well!

National Day Journals

These national day journals are such a fun thing to add to your morning meeting and they work on writing skills as well as opinions and social skills.



After everyone finishes their journal, you can have your class share what they thought of the national day from the three choices and then tally them up on the board using the the poster (which also includes discussion questions to further help work on social skills and conversations).



This a great way to reinforce that they're aren't always right answers for everything and it's great to share your opinion and be different from others sometimes!

These symbol supported national day journals are a new resource line at Breezy Special Ed. They will continue to be released prior to the start of each new month.

While distance learning, send these home as a packet or upload to your online classroom and students can use a PDF writer to edit and write on their work!

Symbol Supported Reading Comprehension



Symbol support can be so helpful for beginning readers, non-readers, and visual learners. These ten reading passages are about summer time: zoo, library, BBQ, bike ride, campfire, water park, ice cream, blueberry picking, beach, and hiking. Each story includes: a short and simple 4-5 sentence story, a cut and paste cloze (fill in the blank) activity, and a quiz. 

Everything is NO PREP! Just print and you are ready to use! 10 stories easily give you lessons for 2 weeks of instruction.

Symbol Comprehension and Distance Learning


While distance learning, you can have students use with an online PDF writer (such as Kami, Lumin PDF, SeeSaw classroom, and many others) and you can also video yourself reading it for students to listen to before they complete the comprehension activities.

This format is also easy to print and send home as packets.

Increase Reading Comprehension by Using Symbols!


Grab this summer symbol reading comprehension pack HERE.

Don't need the symbols for some of your students? The add-on without symbols is available HERE.

Need more stories? Here are some others that make for great summer themes

Summer Life Skill Math and Journals


Both of these sets include 3 levels to help you reach the need of all of your students. Plus, like I mentioned earlier, isn't everything more fun when it is summer themed?! ;)


Basic Life Skill Math

Included in this summer math pack are 5 life skill topics, each including 6 different worksheets at 3 different levels (plus 3 bonus number worksheets).


Money: Level 1 works on recognizing and matching bills. Level 2 works on matching bills to their dollar amount. Level 3 works on combining multiple bills to reach certain dollar amounts. A reading component is included as scenarios such as "You love flip flops, so you buy a pair for $15." Reading not necessarily needed as students can search the text for the numbers.

Directions (Top, Bottom, Left, Right): Level 1 works on these directions using arrows as support. Level 2 works on following directions without the arrow support (using the word only). Level 3 adds a little extra to the level 2 worksheets by adding a part to the directions in the front, so instead of "circle the sun on the left" it might say "color in" or "draw a line under" or "put an X on", etc. 

More/Less: The main difference between the levels on these worksheets is the amounts. Level 1 goes up to 3. Level 2 goes up to 5, and level 3 goes up to 10. Different worksheets ask students to circle the group with more or to count and number each group and then for level 3 figure out how many more are in the box with more.

Sizes: Level 1 works on big and small only. Levels 2 and 3 work on small, medium, and large. Level 3 also works on arranging in order of size where the other levels just sort between the sizes. Different worksheets work on circling certain sizes different colors or cut and pasting to sort the sizes.

Time: Level 1 works on recognizing the difference between morning/night and am/pm. Level 2 focuses on digital time to the hour and half hours, with some analog time. Level 3 works on analog time to the 5 minute intervals. Each level also includes a reading component along with the time, and level 2 and 3 also reinforce am/pm concepts.

Distance learning? Send these home as a packet! You could also have students use many of these digitally with a PDF writer.

Errorless Summer Journals



These journals are my absolute favorite as they reach all of the needs of my students. A classroom sample provides sentence starters and three errorless options. The options are errorless because so many of my students are concerned about getting the right answer that they always look for help. I want them to be successful and these journals help them be confident about their writing abilities.

Level 1: Students will color the picture, trace the word as best as they can (scribbles are totally okay), and then choose from two visual options to complete each sentence starter. Then you can have students practice reading their journal by repeating words or using their communication device.

Level 2: Students will color the picture and then can draw it on their own. They then trace the sentence starters and then choose from the three options to complete their sentence, which are below each line.

Level 3: Students will draw the pictures on their own and then write the paragraph using the classroom sample and options.

You can get this set of summer journals here.

Distance learning? Send these home as a packet! You could also have students use these digitally with a PDF writer but it is helpful and important to continue to use writing utensils and physically write as well.



Continue those IEP Goals!

This probably goes without saying, but make sure you are continuing to practice those IEP goals. If you are distance learning, boom cards are a great way to have students practice skills and have automatic data collected!

Looking for activities to track IEP goals, whether distance learning or in person? Join the Breezy Special Ed Insiders group on Facebook and ask our community! We are full of special educators like yourself and love to help each other! 


Need more Distance Learning Ideas?

Check out this home themed unit that would be perfect for distance learning ESY HERE

Also check out this blog post for over 25 ideas for zoom calls with your special education class.


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