Summer Reading List Ideas for Kids (By Mensa for Kids)

I haven't blogged in like two weeks!  Finals just took up all my time.  I finished finals last week, and honestly my brain has been too tired to do much.  I just finished my first year of working full time and working on my PhD part-time, and I am still adjusting to how to balance it all.

I have a lot I want to share with you, but I thought I would start with some ideas for summer reading for kids.  I always have parents who are looking for ideas of books for their students to read.  Parents of gifted and bright kids, especially, will usually ask because they struggle with how to keep their kids adequately challenged through the summer.  I do not like assigning summer reading, but I like to share ideas for books to read.

Last November at the NAGC conference in Indianapolis, one of the vendors was Mensa for Kids. They told me about a book list they put together.  There is a K-3 list, a grades 4-6 lists, and a grades 7-8 list.  I currently teach grades 4-5, and next year it looks like I may be moving to grades 7-8.  I am trying to choose the novels I want to cover next year for grades 7-8.  I am planning on choosing at least a few of the books from the Mensa list. There is about 50 books on each list, so they obviously probably wouldn't read them all in a summer. However, at least it is a great resource for parents. If the kids read all the books on a list, they also can send it in and get a t-shirt from Mensa for Kids.

HERE is a link to the website to click on the different lists.  Below is an image of the first page of the grades 4-6 list.

I am going to email the list out to my students' parents next week.  Where do you get your summer reading list ideas to share with parents?