🦁 Free CE1 summer workbook to print: heading towards CE2

The year of . is ending, and what a year: your child has done their first written calculations, conjugated their first verbs in the present tense, discovered multiplication… and their reading has finally become fluent — or almost. So, when packing the suitcases, a question arises: how to keep all this fresh until CE2, without turning the campsite into a classroom? Good news: a free CE1 summer workbook to print is more than enough — and we offer you one, downloadable in one click, without giving your email address. In this guide: what a child really needs to retain from their CE1 year, concrete activities for each area, and why reading deserves, that summer more than any other, a little fifteen minutes daily.

What should a child retain from their CE1 year?

CE1 is not just a repeat of CP: it is the year when major learning consolidates and new projects begin. Here, area by area, is what your child takes in their schoolbag — and the summer priority for each.

If your child has just finished CP (Cours Préparatoire, ages 6-7) and is heading to CE1 (Cours Élémentaire 1, ages 7-8) in September, this is not the right article: instead, go read our guide for free printable CP summer workbook, designed to review complex sounds and complements to 10.

Why the “summer slide” mainly threatens struggling readers

Every September, CE2 (Cours Élémentaire 2, ages 8-9) teachers notice: some students come back as they left, others have lost part of their skills over the summer. Anglo-Saxon studies have measured this phenomenon for a long time — it’s the famous “summer slide”, which we detail in our article on loss of skills during vacations.

What is less said is that it doesn’t affect everyone the same way. A child whose reading is fluent keeps reading without noticing: highway signs, restaurant menus, comic book bubbles. A still struggling readeravoids what costs effort: they don’t read anything all summer, and it’s precisely they who fall behind. Between CE1 and CE2, the gap silently widens. The solution is not heroic: fifteen minutes a day, well chosen, is enough to keep the engine running.

CE1 revisions, domain by domain (without a blackboard)

Forget the classroom recreated in the kitchen. Here’s how to maintain each CE1 skill with what summer provides.

Reading: aim for fluency, not quantity

The fluency — reading quickly, without stumbling, with expression — is THE big project between CP and CE2; teachers use benchmarks around 70 words per minute at the end of CE1. The most effective technique is also the simplest: repeated reading. Choose a short text, the child reads it aloud three days in a row, stopwatch in hand, and watches their score climb. They only compare to themselves — and love beating their record. Add paired reading (one paragraph each), dialogues acted out with character voices, and remember that a comic book, a recipe, or board game rules count as much as a “real” book.

Conjugation: mastering the present tense

CE1 is the first real year of conjugation: the present tense of -er verbs, d'être andavoir. These brand-new endings fade quickly if never used. Two painless rituals: the dinner verb (“tonight, verb chanter: je chante, tu chantes…” — each person, one minute timed) and the pronoun dice (1 = je, 2 = tu, 3 = il… the child conjugates the verb drawn). Finally, postcards to grandparents remain the best disguised lesson: “nous visitons, il pleut, je me baigne” — three verbs in the present, one stamp, zero protest.

Written calculation: don’t let the carry slip away

Setting up an addition or a subtraction with borrowing, it is a precision mechanism learned this year — and it is exactly the kind of technique that rusts in eight weeks. No need to line up pages of operations: just one per day, carefully set, is enough. Vary the supports: add two items from the receipt, count the scores in pétanque, check the points in the board game. And bring out the change, a great discovery in CE1 (7-8 years old): paying for bread with real coins and checking what you get back on 5 €, these are subtractions that don’t say their name.

Multiplication: the 2 times table as a playground

In CE1 (7-8 years old), your child discovered the meaning of multiplication — 3 × 2 is 2 + 2 + 2 — and learned the 2 times table, often accompanied by the 5 and 10 tables. It is a treasure to protect: CE2 (8-9 years old) will tackle all the tables, and a child who arrives with a solid 2 times table has a head start. Summer is wonderfully suited for this, as the world is full of pairs: socks to hang, family bike wheels, flip-flops lined up by the door. Also connect with the doubles learned in CP (6-7 years old): 2 × 7 is the double of 7 — and there’s half the work already done.

How much time per day on a CE1 holiday workbook?

At 7 or 8 years old, you can aim for 15 to 20 minutes per day — a little above the 10-15 minutes of CP, but no more. The regularity beats duration : four to five mornings per week, at the same time — just after breakfast — is better than one hour of forced catch-up at the end of August. Also allow a real break of one to two weeks at the beginning of summer: a rested brain relearns faster. And keep the course: a holiday workbook is for maintaining, not finishing the program — summer is primarily for dens, friends, and ice pops.

A free printable CE1 holiday workbook, no email or registration required

On paper, the web is full of “free” workbooks. In practice, many require an email address, a newsletter subscription, sometimes worse. At Kidibook, it’s shorter: you click, you download the free holiday workbook in PDF format, and you print. That’s all.

The printable format has another merit that no commercial workbook offers: the failed page can be reprinted. A scribbled subtraction? Restart the printing and try again without drama. You can also print only one sheet per morning — a finished page displayed on the fridge motivates more than a big workbook that never “goes down” — and skip concepts already mastered.

Leo the lion cub and the Jungle world: revise like an expedition

The real difficulty remains: making the child want to open the workbook on the twelfth morning, when the novelty has worn off. That’s where Kidibook plays its card: each level is a world, and CE1 is the Jungle, with Leo the lion cub as expedition companion. In Leo’s Great Journey, operations are done to cross the river, verbs are conjugated in the present to talk to parrots, the 2 times table is recited to count monkeys hidden in the trees. The child does not “do homework”: they advance toward the jungle throne.

If the formula works, the Kidibook subscription for CE1 level delivers a new printable adventure workbook every day, for 7 €/month — enough to last all summer and then accompany the CE2 year. Do you prefer a real book to slip in the suitcase, without a printer? The CE1 holiday workbook in paper version available at Kidibook Editions at 14,99 €, free shipping from €25 purchase. And to continue the morning ritual after the start of school, take a look at My Super Year, our daily challenge book that follows the child throughout their CE2 year.

In summary: between CE1 and CE2, the useful summer boils down to three lines — read aloud every day, do a written calculation, play with the 2 times table and the present tense. A free CE1 summer workbook to print, fifteen minutes at breakfast, and Léo takes care of the rest: in September, your explorer will enter CE2 with their mane blowing in the wind.