Summer is a great time for songs like "Ants Go Marching By," written anonymously and set to "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" by Louis Lambert, and poems such as Eric Carle's "The Very Hungry Caterpillar."
Find a book of summer poems and songs, and be sure to sing a song and recite a poem with your children every day during the unit. At the end you will have a plethora of songs and poems you can repeatedly use.
Many art projects can be incorporated into a summer theme at a daycare. Art projects can include creating summer scenes with construction paper. Students can make grass, yellow suns, flowers and blooming trees. Make a beach using glue to attach sand or glitter, tissue paper and construction paper onto cardboard to create sand, water and boats.
Summer-themed unit activities include growing a garden with your daycare center or planting flowers. Playing in the dirt or sand with shovels and buckets, going on nature walks to look at the blooming trees, and pretending to be at the beach while really laying in your back yard are all great summer unit activities.
Games that you already play can be customized to fit the unit. The Farmer in the Dell can be played with the names of the members of a farm family and barn yard. Outdoor games such as tag can be called summer time names, like Firefly Catcher, and the game of laying on the grass and calling out what shapes you see in the clouds boosts imagination as well as relates back to the summer childcare theme.