Kindergarten Activities

Create your own Listen to some of these published alphabet for inspiration: ABC An Amazing Alphabet by Dr. Seuss LMNO peas by Keith Baker Click, Clack, Quackity- Quack by Doreen Cronin Eating the Alphabet: Fruits and Vegetables from A to Z by Lois Ehlert - Include a few items for each letter. - Be sure to use drawings, labels and words on each page of your book. - Try to work on one or two pages a day!

Label it! Your classroom uses labels to show you how words and print connect. Some of the things in your class that are labeled are the cubbies, the bathroom, the smartboard, the word wall. Choose a room or rooms in your house that you would like to label. Use sticky notes or index cards to create labels. Use what you know about letters and sounds to stretch out each word as best you can. Draw a picture of the item to go with each label.

Letters are EVERYWHERE! Build your own alphabet ! Search for items in your house that start with each letter of the alphabet. Talk to your family about all the items you find. Did you find a lot of one letter over the others? What letter did you find the least amount of? Why do you think that is?

Storytelling with pictures We can tell our own stories by just using the pictures in a book! Choose a you have at home. Look at the pictures and think about what is happening in each one. Tell your own story using what you see in the pictures. As you tell the story, have an adult write down what you say or record your story. Practice your story back.

Let’s Eat! What kind of restaurant do you like to visit? Burgers, sandwiches, Asian, Italian, American, Sushi, Ice cream shops… there are endless possibilities! Create your own menu for your restaurant. Be sure to write each food item and a description of it. (Example: Chocolate chip ice cream- vanilla ice cream with giant chocolate chunks). You may want to include some illustrations to match too!

How-to Recipes Make yourself a snack or something for lunch (apples and peanut butter, a sandwich, fruit salad, etc.). Afterwards, write out a how-to book in order to teach someone else how to make it.

Watch me grow! Plant a seed of your choice. Take care of it by providing it with water, air and sunlight. Watch how your plant grows over time. Keep a journal of observations to show the changes your plant makes over time. Be sure to write the date on each journal entry, draw pictures, include labels and write words to show what’s happening to your plant as it grows!

Free choice research What is a topic that you are really interested in learning more about? Maybe it’s bears. Maybe it’s the Solar System. Maybe it’s George Washington. Visit PebbleGo (username: guilford password: lakes) and choose a topic to learn more about. After reading, create a poster, book or video to teach someone else about that topic.

Hometown Heroes There are so many people working hard to keep us all safe. Write a letter to a police officer or firefighter in our town, thanking them for all of their hard work. Have a grown up mail the letter!

Sensory Walk On a beautiful day, go for a walk outside. Notice the smells and sounds. Look closely at the little things. Feel the fresh air and the wind. When you return, describe your walk in writing. What did you hear? What did you see? What did you feel? What did you smell?

Spring has Sprung Watch the Brain Pop Jr video on spring: https://jr.brainpop.com/science/weather/spring/ Signs of Spring are popping up all around us! Spend some time keeping a springtime journal. Add an entry every few days that tells and illustrates what new signs of spring you see.

Who Are You? Write your own All About Me book. Teach the reader everything there is to know about you! Where do you live? When were you born? Who is in your family? What are some things you love? What are some things you don’t like? What are your hopes and dreams?

Great Ideas for Practicing Letters! (adapted from weareteachers.com)

Write letters on dried beans

Large dried white beans are inexpensive to purchase and easy to write on. Grab a sharpie and write all the upper and lower case letters on them. Then put each set in a pile (or baggie) and ask your kids to match them. You can even practice building sight words with the beans.

Letter sort with sticky notes

Write individual letters on sticky notes and then place them all over your house or just on every stair in a staircase. This practice game has a lot of variations—all tied to sorting. Ask kids to sort by:

● lowercase/uppercase ● letters in their name ● straight lines (H) ● curved lines (c) ● both curved and straight lines (B) ● consonants ● vowels

For even more practice: have them sort their finds into ABC order, match lowercase letters to uppercase letters, and then, find a way to sort them that’s new. Write letters in shaving cream

Squirt shaving cream on a table and let your kids write letters in the cream. Smooth it out to erase and start again. Bonus: their hands and your table will be cleaner than ever!

Find invisible letters with watercolors

This is a classic. Using a white crayon, draw letters on a piece of white paper. Give your kids watercolor, let them paint the paper, and watch the letters appear.

Play musical alphabet

Set up letters in a big circle on the floor. You can use magnetic letters or just write them on index cards. Put music on and have your child walk around the circle to the music. When the music goes off, your child tells you the closest letter. Expand on it: ask your child to name three things (colors, animals, etc) that start with that letter.

Make letters from nature

Find the alphabet right outside. Choose natural objects that already look like letters, or arrange them to look like them.

Make tactile letter cards

There’s lots of research (and experience) to support the value of using all the senses to learn. Making these tactile alphabet cards will be fun and have lasting benefits.

Trace letters in spices

This one combines touch, smell, and sight. It gives you an opportunity to talk about what we use spices for as well. Put the bottle in front of a child and have them write the spice name in the spice to make things a bit more challenging.

Do the yoga alphabet

Show kids this video and take the time to learn each yoga pose. Connecting the mind and the body is great for learning. https://youtu.be/O0Bb5T2-b1A

Highlight letters on a page

Print a page of text or grab your favorite magazine and a highlighter. Ask kids to highlight as many of one letter as they can find. This is also great for sight word recognition. Create loose part letters

What are loose parts? Loose parts are exactly what they sound like—a collection of loose materials or objects. These can be small pebbles, bottle caps, random LEGO bricks, seeds, keys, anything. Draw big letters on a piece of paper and have kids line up loose parts to make the letter.