Printable Summer Punch Cards for Kids to Avoid Summer Slide

We made these printable summer punch cards for kids to help reduce summer slide and get the kids away from the screens! This is an easy way to encourage reading, summer science, and so much more and the printable set even includes blank punch cards for kids. Get yours now.

Summer Punch Cards for Kids to Prevent Summer Learning Loss

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What is Summer Slide?

As the parent of a kindergartener, I just learned about the perils of summer slide (and it’s shocking how common it is)!

If you’ve never heard this term before it’s basically learning loss which occurs over the summer. Teacher friends have told me they plan for weeks of catch up because it’s something they deal with every year.

Eek. Weeks?

I’m sure every parent wants to prevent summer learning loss.  I sure do! When I sat down to brainstorm our summer schedule, I thought it would be nice to show how much ‘work’ kids can actually do. My daughter always loves to see her progress.

Tips to Reduce Summer Learning Loss

Asking my educator friends what I could do as a parent to reduce summer slide, they said to encourage reading, science, and basic arts and crafts. Rewards for doing well go over like gangbusters, so I thought I would create these printable summer punch cards to keep track of these activities.

  1. Read – The number of books, days, visits to the library – you can measure their reading progress any way you’d like. You can even put these summer punch cards on a piece of cardstock to make a bookmark.
  2. Science and Math – From simple kitchen experiments with baking soda and vinegar to slime-making and outdoor engineering projects, summer science is just plain fun! Simple math activities can even start with cooking – measuring out and adjusting recipes is math!
  3. Crafts – It may not seem like it, but kids are learning, experimenting, and challenging themselves when doing arts and crafts projects in summer. I’m planning on some patterning, sequencing, and other math concepts to include during our summer crafting. Psst: some of that is math in disguise!

For more ideas on how to prevent summer slide, check out this list of 10 ways to prevent learning loss.

Learn how to prevent summer slide infographic

Printable Summer Punch Cards for Kids – A Full Set

Every house is different and each family can include a range of kids. To make sure everyone had what they needed, I created a 3-page, 9-card printable summer punch cards set.

You’ll get:

  • reading, science, and crafts colored versions (3 cards)
  • reading, science, and crafts coloring page versions (3 cards)
  • 3 blank punch card templates to fill in any activity (acts of kindness, cooking, behavior, etc.)

If you’d like to laminate the cards, we use this inexpensive laminator in our house. Look at all the great reviews – that’s why we chose it and we’re happy we did.

Get the Summer Punch Cards for Kids Set Here

Over to You

Do you have some great ideas to prevent summer slide? I’d sure be grateful if you shared them in a comment below.

Speaking of being grateful, will you share this on Facebook or pin it to your favorite board on Pinterest?

Learn how to prevent summer slide using these free printable summer punch cards for kids. Reward them! #positivereinforcement #positivediscipline #rewardcards #punchcards #summerslide #summer #rufflesandrainboots

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2 Comments

  1. These are all such great ideas! I love the little punch cards – they are really fun and kids can see progress!

  2. Your summer punch cards are cute!

    My daughter is always doing crafts on her own. I print out a bunch of stuff for the math and created a summer journal for her to practice writing. This year, her teacher sent home a summer packet to work on math and reading skills as well.