Free Printable Summer Reading Activities, Book Crafts, Literature Games

March is National Reading Month, kicked off by "Read Across America." Schools abound with reading opportunities. But what about those long summer months? Here are summer reading enrichmentactivities to keep kids' noses in books year-round! Included are interactive reading response activities, ELA (English language arts) lessons, book-based crafts and literature response lessons. Use these multi-sensory, cross-curricular Montessori-based lessons for Readers Workshop, special education students, reluctant readers and divergent learners too.

Entrepreneurial reading. Research, plan and organize summer money-making or nonprofit fundraising ventures: yard sale, babysitting, lawn and pet services, knitting and craft sales, housecleaning. Host a lemonade stand. Lemonade Day shows how.

Book-based crafts. Scholastic has free printable book crafts, games and literature response activities. Access Scholastic publishers' vast data base of children's literature. Get games, crafts and printables from favorite kids' books.

DIY summer reading camp. Have kids start their own summer reading club. Education.com has free printable reading activities. Utilize materials and your local library. Host book club activities in your backyard! Discuss favorite books, make crafts, play games, act out stories and enjoy book-themed snacks!

Book recipes. Make foods described in books. Look for companion cookbooks to favorite books: American Girls, Little House on the Prairie, Haunted America, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs have cookbooks with recipes from the stories. Invent recipes based on books. We made Winnie-the-Pooh "haycorn" (pecan) pie and honey cookies.

Readers theater or puppet show. Make book character puppets. Have kids retell story. Or let them write their own stories using homemade puppets. My kids wrote a puppet show using puppets from Mercer Mayer's "There's a Nightmare in my Closet", Mike Mulligan's steam shovel (from Virginia Lee Burton's book) and "Word Bird" (Jane Belk Moncure).

Reading response journal. Have kids track reading and complete activities. Check my blog Free Lesson Plans 4U and Free Printable Lesson Plans and Kidz Literature for tips to make literature response journals and activity suggestions. Here's a free printable reading calendar from PBS.

Rewards and incentives. Participate with Pizza Hut Book-It program. The first week of March is the "Let's all Read" program, partnered with One More Story. Kids read and get pizza, plus they donate to RIF by reading! Double good! Incent reading with books. Join Scholastic--get free books for ordering. Give as prizes for completed reading.

Free printable outline maps for Geography Lessons

Remember the cute little Disney song, "It's a Small World" where children dressed in traditional costumes of their country danced around? I'm trying to re-create that feeling of inter-connectedness using social networking. And you can with students, too. Kids spend a lot of time online, in social networks like Facebook. They blog and useTwitter, Instagram, Pinterest. All these avenues can be used to teach geography. When I connect with someone on any social network, I always check to see where they are from. I'm building a virtual friend map. Here's how students learn mapping and global skills online.

Here are free printable outline maps as well. Use these to practice for the eNational Geographic National Geography Bee is heating up! Kids from all over are honing their geography skills to hopefully qualify. Teachers and homeschool parents, here arefree printable world maps for social studies lesson plans and geography bee activities. Eduplace has over sixty free printable outline maps for use in social studies class and geography lessons. Have students make free printable world maps for social studies homework and to study for tests.

There are about ten different world maps for geography lessons. There are also outline maps from each continent, country and region. Use free printable outline maps for world and local geography. There is one page with free printable historical maps to help students understand how areas were labeled at different times in history. US History also offers free printable world history maps from famous times and places.

All free printable world maps are outline maps, meaning that they're drawn as outlines of the country, continent or region. Free printable outline maps are labeled with cities and major landforms. You can print the maps with labels for students to use for practice and memorization. There are also printable maps without labels. Use these for practice, study guides, quizzes and tests. With or without labels, outline maps are identical so that there is no confusion between the two. Check the homepage for more free printable geography lessons, social studies activities and American history worksheets.

Assign students to trace and color code world maps for social studies. Coloring and tracing maps are great geography lessons for visual learners and special needs students. Tracing maps helps students conceptualize size, proportion relative area and distance. Teachers can laminate outline maps after students have colored and labeled them. Student can cut out different regions, states, countries or continents and reassemble pieces like a puzzle. Teachers can also laminate blank world maps for practice tools. Label the back with answers for self checking geography lessons.