21 Summer Butcher Paper Activities

Keep your little learners moving and learning with these summer butcher paper activities for preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten students. There are ideas for science, math, literacy, and fine motor skills. The summer butcher paper activities are for a variety of themes like ocean, shells, ice cream, lemonade, bugs, zoo, and more.

If you aren’t familiar with butcher paper activities, let me give you a quick overview. They are hands-on activities that are on a large scale so that students are up moving around while learning. This helps them burn off energy and build their larger muscles to help their fine motor muscles develop. These are great for moving larger body parts while developing gross motor skills. They help students learn with their peers in a multi-sensory, play-based activity that is educational. Butcher paper activities are great for morning time, table time, small groups, or center time.

Grab the Butcher Paper Activity Guide for ideas for the whole year! Grab my favorite butcher paper supplies from Amazon here.

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Summer Butcher Paper Activities for Fine Motor

Constellation Map! Give students star stickers to place on black paper. Then, they use chalk to connect the stars. This is a great way to practice fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and crossing the midline.

Snake Pre-Writing Lines! Draw all kinds of snakes in the grass and give students the opportunity to trace the lines. The first step in writing development is for students to copy lines and then imitate them independently. This is the perfect way to help little learners develop writing skills. 

Ocean Waves Trace! I made some cards with different kinds of lines on them. Students pick a line card and draw that line on the blue paper to create ocean waves. You can then have students decorate the ocean with stickers.

Hot Air Balloon Lines! Fill a hot air balloon with beautiful colors and lines with this summer butcher paper activity. I created a dice with different kinds of lines on it. Then, students rolled the die and added that kind of line to the hot air balloon.

Summer Butcher Paper Activities for Literacy

Coconut Letter Trace! This butcher paper idea is great for an ocean, beach, or tropical theme, along with a back-to-school theme, when everyone reads this book. If you aren’t going to read this book, just put it with another ocean or beach book. Draw a coconut tree and add letters all around. Students say and trace the letters.

Ice Cream Letters! Draw some ice cream cones and write uppercase and lowercase letters inside. Then, give students letter manipulatives to match. I also set out pony beads so students could build the letters instead. These could also be snow cones if you need a fair or carnival theme.

Tennis Letter Hit! To begin, draw some tennis balls and write letters inside. Then, give students a fly swatter and a letter die. They roll the die, find that letter, and hit it with their fly swatter. Young children could also use paper plates with popsicle stick handles for their racquets.

Spaceship Letter Match! Perfect for a space or transportation theme, draw a spaceship and fill it with letters or numbers. Students match letter manipulatives. They will be working on letter identification, letter formation, and social skills while they talk with their peers.

Treasure Sight Words! Draw a treasure chest on kraft paper and fill it with sight words. I had students build the sight words with letter manipulatives and letter coins. You can read how to make the letter coins here and other great ideas for DIY manipulatives. I put the letter manipulatives in a sensory bin for even more fun!

Summer Butcher Paper Activities for Math

Leaf Counting! These leaves with numbers in them are perfect for a lot of themes during the summer months. It would work with insects, camping, plants, gardening, trees, etc. Students count out the amount of manipulatives and place them inside the matching number leaf.

Leaf Domino Counting! Reuse the leaves from above and give older kids a new manipulative to practice more counting skills. Dominoes are a fun way to practice informal addition skills with young children.

Firework Roll & Count! Give students a dot die and a color die to roll. Then they place that many pom poms in the matching color on the fireworks. If 2 dice are too complicated, just give them one that works on the skill that is needed for your students. Students can practice identifying a variety of colors in a perfect multi-sensory activity. 

Watermelon Seed Count! Practice counting to 100 or by 10s with this cute watermelon seed counting activity. I had younger kids group black pom poms in sets of 10 to get to 100. This is an easy way to practice counting by tens to 100.

Lemonade Stack & Count! Lemonade is a refreshing drink for the summer months, so why not make a butcher paper activity about it? I wrote numbers in the ice cubes, and students counted linking cubes. Students could stack them in patterns, too.

Lemonade Addition! Make your lemonade butcher paper more challenging by writing addition problems in the ice cubes. Students can use 2 colors of linking cubes to show the math problem and find the sum.

Popsicle Addition! For this one, I drew popsicles on a piece of paper and wrote addition problems inside. Then, I cut the popsicle sticks shorter and wrote the sums on them. Students solved the addition problems and placed a popsicle stick to complete the problem.

Ice Cream Addition! Write addition problems in the cones and give students pom poms to show the math problem and find the sum. These could also be a fun idea for a carnival theme as snow cones. They can use their favorite colors of pom poms from your craft supplies. 

Ocean Color Sort! Make a simple color graph and give students summer manipulatives to sort by color. I used ocean critters for this graph. This color sorting graph could be changed to work for any theme just by swapping out the manipulative.

Shell Sort! Practice sorting seashells by size, color, or texture. If you don’t have shells, you can sort other things from nature or the classroom.

Fish Patterns! Draw an object that matches your theme (fish) and start patterns in them. Students used cut-up pipe cleaners to complete the patterns. Give kids of all ages a magnet wand to clear their area when they are done. This would work for so many themes like rays of sunshine, flowers, scarves, mittens, animals, buildings, cars, etc.

Sun Patterns! My students love making patterns with all the different colors of manipulatives I set out. There are chain links, bingo chips, and linking cubes in sun colors. Students will have a great time working on math skills!

Zoo Map! To practice hand-eye coordination, fine motor development, and crossing the midline, I give students some zoo animals and let them connect the animals to make a zoo map. They have so much fun talking and sharing about their experiences at the zoo. This also works for a farm, polar animals, or garden theme.

These summer butcher paper activities are going to be a hit in your classroom. Remember, these ideas can be changed to differentiate for your student’s needs and for your theme. Just pick a theme and a skill, and let your creativity create something fun and engaging for your students. If you want more butcher paper ideas, grab the butcher paper guide here!

Check out the blog post for the best ideas for a fun activity for little kids. Just click on the photo to see the post and add these fun things to your lesson plans. 

Check out some spring butcher paper activities in this video tutorial.

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