Easy Summer School Technology Activities for Grades 2-5

Summer school doesn’t have to feel like a drag, especially when technology is involved! I’ve always loved Summer school as a Technology teacher and I’ve almost always participated in it at my school. Engaging students with fun and creative tech activities is the way I make summer learning exciting and enjoyable. Here are some easy to implement, almost zero prep technology-related activities that are perfect for keeping students entertained and learning during summer school sessions.

Idea 1: Create a digital storybook using either Google Slides or MS PowerPoint

Materials:

Device (preferably a laptop or a PC) for each student, with either Google Slides or Microsoft PowerPoint

Students love telling stories, don’t they 😊, and digital tools make it even more exciting. Have them write a short story and bring it to life with pictures and narration. Seeing the younger students’ imagination bloom is one of the big joys of being a teacher in my opinion.

How to do it:

Students write a story with a simple beginning, middle, and end parts. You can differentiate this by saying “one slide per part is enough” to the younger students and something like “make 2-3 slides per part”, or even give rules for how many pictures or dialogs are allowed 🙂
Add drawings (on paper or digitally). The digital version is easier, of course, just give the students the option to use Google Images, or some free images website (I use Pixabay mostly) and tell them a bit about copyrighted pictures. You could also let them use a safe school-approved search engine. The other option is for them to draw the parts of the story, take a picture of those and upload the pictures to their devices to be used in the slides, or simply use some drawing software like MS Paint. This option takes 200% more time, at least, but is more fun 🙂
Record themselves reading the story. This is the fun part. Nowadays, almost all devices have a built-in microphone that the students can use to record their voice while narrating the story. This happens very easily with software such as Microsoft PowerPoint or Google Slides.

Why it’s great: This activity builds literacy skills while introducing multimedia creation in a simple, fun way. My students enjoy their time a lot with this activity.

Idea 2: “Be a Robot” (Unplugged Coding) or the Exact Instructions Challenge

Perfect for younger learners and requires no devices, completely unplugged. And if you know me, you know I love unplugged coding activities a lot! Here’s a link to my favorite unplugged activities, click here. If you feel like being creative, here are the steps required to do the activity yourself:

How it works:

One student is the “robot”
Another student is “programming” the robot student, so he/she gives step-by-step instructions (e.g., “move forward 2 steps, touch your nose, etc.”)
The robot must follow the instructions exactly, without thinking, and it doesn’t matter if they think the task will or won’t be completed this way, just follow the instructions blindly

You can watch a very funny video (even with your students) as an introduction to the activity. It’s called “the exact instructions challenge” and you can find many videos of it on YouTube. The one I love playing is the classroom friendly version of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich by Josh Darnit. Here’s a link, click here to watch – Exact Instructions Challenge PB&J Classroom Friendly | Josh Darnit. I discovered this video in 2018 and I really use it absolutely every year since 🙂 It’s hilarious!

Ok, you and your students both know what the challenge is about after the video. Now, it’s time to pick student pairs and play out some scenarios and give the robot step-by-step instructions to finish a task. Below is a list of tasks that I use with my students. I give the “programmer” the list and I either make them pick a task from the list, or I give them freedom to come up with something of their own, depending on the grade level of the students. Younger students typically get the list 🙂 Afterwards, I switch the pair and make the “robot” student be the programmer this time.

What they learn with this activity: Clear instructions, sequencing, and debugging when things go wrong, problem solving.

Idea 3: Design Your Own Robot (Creative + Tech Thinking)

This is one of those activities that students instantly get excited about because it combines creativity, engineering thinking and hands-on crafting. It also works beautifully as a summer school activity because it feels fun and relaxed while still building important technology and robotics skills.

Activity:

Students receive different robot parts (arms, sensors, wheels, antennas, CPUs), a body, a head, etc. You can download those from the Internet.
They design and build their own robot by cutting, arranging and gluing the parts together
After building, students explain what each part of their robot does

Extension: Ask students, “What problem does your robot solve?” Maybe their robot cleans oceans, helps with homework, cooks food or explores planets!

If you want a ready-to-use version of this activity, I actually created a resource for it because my students loved this type of project so much. It includes all of the robot parts and sensors, an unplugged coding task, vocabulary and teacher notes that work especially well for elementary technology classes and summer programs. You can check it out here — Robot parts | Unplugged coding and crafting | 5 tasks & vocabulary | Robotics on Teachers Pay Teachers.

One thing I personally love about robot design projects is that every student approaches them differently. Some students focus on making the funniest robot possible, while others suddenly turn into tiny engineers and carefully explain every sensor and feature they added, clearly given it a thought. It always leads to really fun classroom discussions as well. Great activity!

Idea 4: Digital Art: Drawing Summer Creations

Summer school is the perfect time for fun creative technology projects in my opinion. No need to be to academical or to make them think 100% of the time. Students LOVE digital art activities because they feel like play while still building important computer skills.

How it works:

Students use a simple drawing program like Microsoft Paint, Paint 3D or Canva for Education
First, demonstrate a few basic tools like the brush, fill bucket, shapes and text tool
Give students a summer-themed creative challenge or a topic for a drawing
At the end, students can present their artwork or do a fun classroom “gallery walk” (you can also print and hang their painting on the wall)

Fun prompts:

Draw your dream summer vacation
Invent a brand new ice cream flavor and design the advertisement for it
Create a summer superhero
Design the ultimate water park
Create a beach-cleaning robot
Draw what summer vacations might look like in 2050
Draw a beach day with your family

Skills developed: creativity, confidence with digital tools, mouse control, visual storytelling and digital design basics.

My students especially love these kinds of projects because every student’s creation turns out completely different, and they get SO excited to show their designs to the class or to see them every day they pass by the wall right next to the computer lab 🙂

Idea 5: Using a Technology-related Summer-themed picture book

Another summer activity idea I absolutely have to mention is using summer-themed technology-related picture books as the starting point for hands-on STEM lessons and discussions. One of my all-time favorites is the book “How to Code a Sandcastle” by Josh Funk. It’s funny, engaging and surprisingly good at introducing real coding concepts like sequences, loops and conditionals in a way younger students truly understand. The story follows Pearl and her robot Pascal as they try to build the perfect sandcastle using code, and it naturally leads into unplugged coding discussions and STEM activities. Many teachers (including me) use the book as a read-aloud introduction before moving into hands-on robotics or algorithm challenges.

Honestly, Teachers Pay Teachers is full of creative extensions for books like this, especially unplugged coding activities, sequencing games and STEM challenge cards that pair perfectly with summer school programs.

Since I loved the book so much myself, I created a lot of my own beach-themed unplugged coding activities inspired by it. My favorite resource on the book includes STEM challenge cards and sandcastle parts to build, a coding vocabulary, a matching activity and a bonus task (plus teacher notes), that all work wonderfully after reading the story aloud. It keeps the “coding without computers” idea going while still feeling playful and summery for students. You can check it out here: How to Code a Sandcastle Unplugged Coding Activity on Teachers Pay Teachers

Also, a list of all the other activities I have created on the book: