7 Fun and Educational Summer Activities for Teachers

Have you been looking forward to summer as much as your students have? Here are 7 activities that will enrich your summer vacation – and your life – while generating new and productive ideas you can take back to the classroom with you this fall.

#1 – Explore Your Local Area

Regardless of whether you live in an urban or rural environment, there are fun and interesting things to see near you. Get out and take advantage of all that your home town has to offer. Your explorations might generate ideas for student field trips. Or, you can take what you learned to create a quiz about the area, to use as an icebreaker when you meet your new students in the fall.

#2 – Read a Book

You probably have some fun and relaxing reads planned for this summer, but your students and profession will never be far from your mind. Include an Educator book in your summer line-up. This list from Mimio Educator provides The Best Books about Teaching and Learning of 2017—So Far (April 2017). Titles include intriguing topics like:

• Helping Children Succeed: What Works and Why  by Paul Tough
• For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood...and the Rest of Y'all Too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education by Dr. Christopher Emdin

#3 – Go To a Museum

The learning process never ends, even for educators. Take a leisurely summer stroll through an interesting museum. What did you see that surprised or fascinated you? Share it with your students next year.

When you think of museums, you might envision art, or natural history, or perhaps even aerospace. But our country offers an abundance of museums, on all sorts of subjects. How about a museum devoted to puppetry? Voodoo? How about trash, or oddities? Yahoo Travel went in search of “weird, wonderful, and wacky museums” they think are worth going out of your way to see. Check them out here.

#4 – Network with Colleagues

It’s fun to talk shop, outside of the pressures of the school year. Schedule lunches or outings with your fellow educators, to share stories, vent frustrations, or simply have fun. You’ll probably find that as you share, you’ll pick up new ideas for successful teaching strategies. If you want to make these outings even more productive, plan a topic for each event, such as “Best Student Motivators” or “Ways to Make Your Subject Matter Relevant to Kids.”

#5 – Volunteer

Getting involved in your community through volunteer work can be both gratifying and educational. It’s also a compelling experience to share with your students and enhance your value as a role model in their eyes.

Your town probably offers a wide assortment of volunteer opportunities, from hospitals to food kitchens to animal shelters. If you want to travel, try building homes for the needy, with organizations such as Habitat for Humanity or Build Abroad. A different approach might be to volunteer as an intern for a company or industry that’s interesting to you. That experience would give you a sneak peek into a completely different field and would present some interesting material when you speak to your students about career choices.

Websites such as Volunteer Match or Just Serve will help you find meaningful volunteer opportunities in your community.

#6 – Increase Your Technical Prowess

Even if you find technology to be intimidating, there’s undoubtedly an app or device out there that can make your life easier. For example, the Chromebook is one of today’s most popular classroom laptops. It’s compact, affordable, and offers a variety of hardware options, in addition to having simple, web-based operating systems. A Chromebook can be preprogrammed with educational apps, and give you more control over student assignments. They can also facilitate research and collaboration for students.

If you think smartphones in the classroom give educators a reason to boycott technology, Top Hat may help change your view. Top Hat is a teaching platform that lets you turn your students’ distracting mobile devices into learning tools. With Top Hat you can “Flip your classroom, launch hybrid courses, gamify lessons, and amplify student comprehension and engagement.” Options include customizable interactive homework assignments and quizzes.

Kids are the ultimate “early adapters” of technology, and usually they’re the ones teaching us a thing or two. Take time this summer to explore what’s new in the tech world and you may find your Cool Quotient increasing. Share some hot new trends with next fall’s students, to show the kids you’re “with it,” while kindling their imagination and their interest in the STEM fields. This blog on some of the latest tech trends may help, covering fascinating topics like bio-robotics and drones. Here’s another, on Virtual Reality, which is sure to spark some interest!

#7 – Take a Trip

Even if your destination isn’t particularly exotic, a change of scenery will do you good and provide a new perspective. Whether you spend a week in the islands or a weekend in the local mountains, you’ll have some new discoveries to share with your students when you return to school. Remember to take photos!

Have a relaxing and enriching summer.