Summer Reading Bucket List with FREE Printable
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Inside: Summer Reading Bucket List with FREE Printable
It’s that time of year. Libraries, book stores, and Pinterest feeds are filling with programs, book lists, and checklists to keep your kids busy reading all summer long.
The benefits are fabulous: Connect with your kids. Avoid extra screen time. Encourage kids to try new books.
Plus, the ease of summer presents a great opportunity for kids to avoid summer brain drain by making connections to what they learned over the year.
Simplifying Things
However, some of those book lists and checklists are long enough to make your head spin. The reading logs don’t get filled in because they become one more thing to keep track of this summer.
If it overwhelms you, it definitely overwhelms your kids. Where to begin?
You want to do more than survive this summer. You want to thrive.
And we’ve got you covered with something simple.
Simplified Summer Reading Bucket List
We could have filled it with 101 ideas. Instead, we chose a handful for each category. You’ll have a few simple, attainable goals to help kickstart your family’s summer reading.
It will help set the expectation and habit of regular reading time, not last all summer long and probably never complete.
We want you to print it, tape it up, and feel like it’s an easy win.
You might choose to complete one as a family. Maybe your kids complete one on their own. Maybe you come up with some fun incentives specific to what your family enjoys. Make it your own!
Bucket List Sections
The bucket list is broken into a few sections for simpler goal setting. Heck, you can be clever and check off several items with one book. Go, you.
Here’s what you’ll find.
- Types of books to read. Sometimes we need a nudge to pick up a book at the library shelf or our own home bookshelves. Got a book that features a scientist? Or one with a talking animal? Read it. Check ’em off.
- Places to read. Take books on the road. Read on a picnic. You get the idea. Encourage kids that reading can be done anywhere. Books are portable magic.
- Book Scavenger Hunt. This is where easy crossover happens and multiple boxes can be checked. A type of book you choose from the first section might have a character type listed on the book scavenger hunt. Win, win.
Note: When you click the above link, you’ll be redirected to our Shop. Follow through the process and your guide will be available for immediate download!
Quick Book Choices
Don’t be slowed down by book indecision. If you let your kids loose in the library to choose, they might come back with nothin’ but fluff. (A little fluff is fine in moderation, of course, but we want you to have an intentional summer win.)
Be ahead of the game. When every book in the kid’s section of the library is an option, everyone feels overwhelmed.
Use the Book Finder to quickly search for options like Animal Stories or Adventure & Fantasy to make a quick list of books for the family. Or maybe let your kids try out the Book Finder filters to find a few that spark their interest.
Here’s a quick video to see how fast and easy it is to filter and generate a book list.
What About Age Ranges?
A quick word on age recommendations. Do not feel pressured to make summer the time to push kids up a reading level. We can’t think of a worse way to discourage relaxing summer reading.
We’re all for kids reading outside of age recommendations when it’s appropriate. A great book a little below their level can do more for reading enjoyment than any ol’ book on the shelf with their age listed on it. A great book is always a better choice.
Mix it up!
Have a variety of books to accomplish more in a shorter time. Read a stack of picture books to check off some boxes, and read aloud from a longer chapter book to complete a few others.
Let’s say you choose Abel’s Island. Adventure book…check. Talking animals…check. Read it in your backyard with a picnic lunch…check.
Abel’s Island
Abel is a refined mouse who lives a comfortable life. An unfortunate turn of events leaves him stranded on an island fighting to survive and make it home to his lovely wife.
More info →
Or maybe you get the picture book On a Beam of Light about Albert Einstein’s life. Picture book biography…check. A character who solves a problem…check. Make a blanket fort and read the book underneath it…check.
On a Beam of Light: A Story of Albert Einstein
On a Beam of Light: A Story of Albert Einstein: Travel along with Einstein on a journey full of curiosity, laughter, and scientific discovery.
More info →Bottom Line: You’re going to accomplish this list and get your kids interested in reading a variety of books this year.
Kickstart Your Summer Reading
A few minutes of printing and planning is all it takes. No pressure from those long book lists and checklists. Close that mental (or literal) tab and move on.
Now you have a direction for your family’s summer reading, which makes you way ahead of the game at this point.
