4 Must-Have Extended School Year Resources for Secondary Students
No matter what grades we teach or what students we teach, whether they are students with disabilities or not, we know about summer brain drain. The need to ‘relearn’ certain things when students re-enter the new school year. To combat this an extended school year or ESY program could be the answer for some students.
What is an ESY program?
An extended school year (ESY) is when the school year is extended beyond its usual 180 days. Many, but not all, students with IEPs can qualify for such programs but it’s usually assessed on a student-by-student basis.
Access to an ESY program is based on the ideas of retaining and recouping. Meaning if a student is unlikely to retain – thereby regressing – over a summer break, then an ESY program might be ideal. In that same vein, a student who might take considerable time to recoup skills when the school year begins again would benefit from ongoing learning through an ESY program.
4 Activities for Extended School Year (ESY)
Matching teaching materials with the season is always a hit with my students! It makes it possible to make connections beyond the classroom with different events or life skills that are specific to the season. With an ESY program it makes sense to focus on summer-related content.
With that in mind here are four resources to suit any number of lesson plans that are sure to encourage learning and support students beyond the traditional school year.
Teaching about summer safety such as pool and sun safety or camping and boat safety are lessons that can incorporate reading and independent living skills. This set of 15 reading comprehension passages are the perfect addition to life skills lessons for special education.Â
These 15 simple and informative reading passages provide engaging topics for students to stay on task during life skills practice. Along with the reading passages with comprehension questions, there are 15 safe/unsafe sorting activities for even more about summer safety.
Click here to check out the full resource to add to your extended school year resources.
Tackle tangible real-life math skills with these easy-to-implement worksheets for your extended school year program. This set focuses on activities that are all about summer including water parks, outdoor picnics, ice cream truck, and more!
These 15 functional reading passages come with either multiple-choice or open-response questions and answers. Topics include appropriate ticket purchases, cost of individual and group tickets, as well as the different in pricing between tickets.
Click here to check out the full resource to add to your extended school year resources.
Incorporating financial literacy is always a great idea to support math-focused learning and the development of independent living skills.
Read more about how to include financial literacy lessons in your special education classes in this post.
With this set of activities, students will practice calculating the total cost for sets of common objects purchased at stores in the summer. There are 15 different adding money worksheets with items from the grocery store, concession stand, camping outlet store, and more!
Click here to check out the full resource to add to your extended school year resources.
Life skills lessons should be engaging enough to hold your students’ attention. You can do this through activities focused on job listings. Bridge the gap between academic and real-life skills with activities all about common summer jobs.
This post has even more ideas about using job listings in class to promote career readiness.
You can capitalize on engagement by having students apply their learning to real world scenarios.
These 40 pages of easy-to-implement materials will give your students practice with practical tasks as they’ll encounter topics like business postings, job duties, requirements, and income calculations. Each job has multiple-choice and open-response questions, so you can easily differentiate for the students in your class.Â
Your students will love these activities so much that they won’t even realize they are sharpening their math, reading comprehension, and writing skills, all while having fun!
Click here to check out the full resource to add to your extended school year resources.
Final Takeaway about ESY
Taking hold of that summer feeling is an ideal way to make an extended school year program engaging and fun! Focus on what students love about the season to connect them to lessons and activities that will help retain learning all year long!
