The kiddos LOVED this game!! I got this idea from @rece_fdk_1994 on Instagram. You can see her original post by clicking here.
I covered a container filled with water and put a piece of tissue paper on top and secured it with an elastic band. The students were instructed to place an animal on top, roll the dice and poke that many holes in the tissue paper with a toothpick. They repeat until their animal falls down!
They could also play with a partner and see who could keep their animal up the longest!
This was a great game for 1:1 correspondence and subitizing!
2. SIGHT WORD SNOWBALL TOSS
I saw this idea originally on @itskindie‘s Instagram page and knew I wanted to try it. A couple weeks passed and I saw it again on someone else’s Instagram page but she wasn’t sharing her printable, so I made my own and took this picture.. and then finally remembered that @itskindie shared a printable already!
So originally I didn’t share the printable, but I talked to @itskindie and she said she didn’t mind if I shared the printable so here it is! You can grab it for free by clicking here or on the image below:
If you want her original version you can find it here.
Anyways, to play this game students are invited to take a “snowball” (cotton ball) and toss it in a cup. They read the cup they get it in and either colour the circle or write the word in the circle. They continue to toss and colour/write until their sheet is full!
I pulled my LLI (intervention reading group) kids to play this game with me and it was a fun way to learn/review sight words! I purposely picked words that my kiddos were struggling with in the PM Benchmark Level 1 and 2 books to give them more practice with them.
3. FOLLOW THE RECIPE – HOT CHOCOLATE
Another big hit with the kiddos this month!
The kids were invited to pick a recipe card and follow the recipe to make a cup of hot chocolate.
We used..
– dry red kidney beans for the cocoa
– brown snap cubes for chocolate
– plastic candy canes (from Dollarama) for the candy canes
– is old dried out (but real) marshmallows for the marshmallow (you could use cotton balls too!)
After a few days I also added blank recipe cards so the kids could write their own recipe and make each other’s hot chocolate recipes! This was a hit too!
You can find these recipe cards in my “Kindergarten Winter Activities” pack. If you want to check it out, you can click here or on the image below!
4. VALENTINE’S DAY BEGINNING SOUND DO-A-DOT
My kids love bingo daubbers so this is an easy no-prep activity that I put out for a lot of holidays! I finally brought out these new colours and the kids went crazy over them!
If you want to grab these they are in my “Kindergarten Valentines Activities” pack on TPT. There are also sheets for:
– H is for heart.
– B is for balloon.
– F is for flower.
– C is for card.
You can click here or on the image below to check it out if you are interested!
5. SIGHT WORD COOKIE PLAY DOUGH CENTRE
Here is a new centre I made up for Valentine’s Day! Our kids love play dough this year (especially if it’s more open ended) so I came up with this centre inspired by Fantastic Fun and Learning’s Candy Heart Play Dough centre (you can see her post by clicking here).
Students are invited to pick a sight word cookie card. Make a heart out of play dough and then decorate it with the sight word using the letter beads!
The letter beads and rhinestones are from Walmart and the cookie cutters are from Dollarama!
EDITED: 01/25/2023
Since I know a lot of us are moving away from sight words, I also added some new cards! You can have them make letter cookies or CVC word cookies instead with pages 3-8 🙂 Please choose the set/sets that work best for your class!
Page 1-2: Sight Word Cards
Page 3-4: Uppercase Letter Cards
Page 5-6: Lowercase Letter Cards
Page 7-8: Lowercase Letter Cards (with letter combinations that can make a CVC word)
You can grab the cards I used at this centre for free by clicking here or on the image below:
6. WORD SEARCH VALENTINES
This year I wanted to come up with a valentine to give to our class that they didn’t just look at and toss in the recycling bin.. so I came up with these. I’m hoping the parents will sit with the kiddos and do the word search with them. Just trying to encourage a little literacy at home over here ;D
Here’s how it looks completed (on the right!)
If you would like to grab these valentines (they are editable so you can type in your name(s) at the bottom!) to use with your class, you can grab them for FREE by clicking here or on the image below:
I did print these at 90% because 100% seemed a little big.. just wanted to let you know that’s what you need to do to get the size you see above!
7. EXTRA VALENTINES
So this is just a friendly reminder but if you know there are kiddos in your class who might not bring Valentines (for whatever reason) to hand out, to have a few extra boxes on hand so you can have them fill them out in the morning and hand them out during your card exchange! I picked these up at Dollarama!
8. HALLWAY BB FOR FEBRUARY
Here is our current bulletin board in the hallway! We put up our learning about cultural celebrations, holidays and special days from the last few weeks. There is a section for Pongal, Lunar/Chinese New Year and Groundhog Day!
If you would like to take a look at my learning goal (with expectation numbers from the Ontario Kindergarten Program) you can click here or on the image below to download it for free!
At the bottom of the craft I added a little box that said “Groundhog Day is on February 2nd!” in dot font so the kids could practice tracing that sentence and adding it to their craft. If you want to grab that, you can do click here or on the image below:
9. VALENTINE LOOSE PARTS MATH
I got this idea from my teaching partner. She did it in her sensory bin but I just put it out at a table. My kiddos didn’t engage with this one too much but I think they might need more modeling. I’m hoping to try it again with non-seasonal manipulatives or St. Patrick’s Day manipulatives soon!
10. VALENTINE HEART HATS
My kiddos love this one every year. I save it for Valentine’s Day so it’s a special activity on the day of. We just fold the paper plates in half and cut around free hand to make the heart shape. I’ve used stamps in the past to decorate these too but stickers, paper hearts or just markers work too!
11. HOW MANY HEARTS CAN YOU STACK?
This one is a hit every year too and so easy. Just buy some conversation and challenge them to see how many they can stack! Great for fine motor and 1:1 correspondence!
12. I LOVE _____ HEARTS
This activity was inspired by @mrsmacskinders! I cut out big hearts and put I love NAME because… for each student in the middle. Then we read “Words and Your Heart” by Kate Jane Neal and talked about how words can fill or hurt your heart. Then we talked about how kind words can fill our heart with so much joy and happiness. Then we introduced the activity. We talked about how we will fill out a few hearts a day and write down things we love about that friend.
Then we read “Happy Valentine’s Day, Mouse!” by Laura Numeroff and listened to the reasons why Mouse loved each of this friends. Lastly, we started to fill out the hearts! Then we did 3 comments per child whole group and then left the hearts out at centre time for the kids to add more words and decorate.
Here’s the finished heart for my teaching partner!
Next time we will start earlier in February and make it a whole month things so that it doesn’t feel rushed! The kids loved this activity though and it was great to foster more kindness in our classroom!
13. EASY PEASY VALENTINE BAGS
Last Valentine post! This year we made these super simple Valentine bags with foam stickers. After they were filled and they went off to gym I added these handles (inspired by @teachingwithheart) and it made it so much easier to carry the bags at the end of the day!
14. WHO LIVES IN YOUR HOUSE?
To celebrate Family Day, we first read “The Family Book” by Todd Parr. We stopped at a few spots and made connections between the families in the books and our own families. Then we drew a picture of the people who live in their house(s) and put them in house shaped popsicle stick frames! Next, we read “A Family Is a Family Is a Family” by Sara O’Leary and listened to the different characters in the story tell why their family is special. Lastly, the kids shared what makes their family special and I recorded their ideas on chart paper!
The chart and the houses are going up on our bulletin board soon. We will try to show you when it’s done!
15. HUNDREDS DAY ACTIVITIES
Here are some of the activities we did for the 100th day of school! We did most of these activities for the whole week during afternoon centres.
“The 100 Poem” was our shared reading for the week! We practiced changing the last word of each sentence as a group and then reading it as a group as well. Students were invited to make their own poems at centre time too.
If you already own this file, the updated version you see above is free! Just re-download the file by clicking here or on the image below to get the free updates!
We also did this “Roll & Race to 100!” activity. Students played in pairs and took turns rolling the dice and dabbing that many squares with a bingo dabber. First person to reach 100 wins!
My kids love anything with paint so “Paint to 100” was popular! I picked up a set of the Crayola glitter paint (I have the regular colour ones and use them often) and they are soooo pretty! The kids loved using it!
One of my kids (who usually has a difficult time self-regulating at centre time) LOVED this one!! I had a “Trace to 100” option available too for kiddos who are still practicing their letter formation so that all students could attempt it!
The kiddos loved this one too! They were invited to predict how much of the jar will be filled with 100 drops of water, try it out and record the results. Then they were asked to circle if their actual amount was more or less than their prediction!
The “100 Second Challenges” were popular too! There were 3 challenges:
How many times can you write your name in 100 seconds?
How many times can you write the alphabet in 100 seconds?
and how many pattern blocks can you stack in 100 seconds?
All of the centres above can be found in my “Centres for the 100th Day” pack. You can click here or on the image below to check it out on TPT if you are interested!
16. DOT STICKER SHAPES
I actually did this activity back in October but was so overwhelmed at the time I didn’t have a chance to snap a pic! But the kids really enjoyed it and it was super popular so I finally took a picture so I could share it with you guys!
I just got the small colour coding sticker dots from Dollarama and set them out with these sheets. The students are invited to cover the lines of the shape with the stickers and then trace the shape word underneath.
You can grab these dot sticker shape sheets (cirlce, square, triangle, rectangle, diamond, star and hexagon and oval are included) by clicking here or on the image below:
17. PLATE DETECTIVES
I originally bought these plates to use with a math activity, but they were too big. Then I was driving home from school the other day and came up with this activity! Since there are lots of pictures and colours on the plates I thought it was perfect for hiding the letters and sight words. I wrote the letters and sight words with a thin tip permanent marker as small as I could. Then I’ll just set them out with magnifying glasses and the recording sheets!
I made two versions. First couple of days I’m going to put them out with this one and have students find the letters/sight words, say the letter/sight word and highlight it. They are done when they find all of the letters and sight words!
Then I’m going to put this one out. For this one they have to just record 5 letters they find and 5 sight words they find on the recording sheet.
I choose Paw Patrol and LOL plates because that is what is popular with my kids (I actually wanted Peppa Pig plates because they are obsessed with Peppa Pig but I didn’t see any at the stores I went to).
I got these plates at Walmart!
You can grab the recording sheet for this activity for FREE by clicking here or on the image below!
18. IN & OUT
This is a game we play every year after we learn about decomposing numbers but I re-made it because my original trays were looking reeeeally ratty. I used Paw Patrol and Frozen plates that I picked up from Walmart because I knew those would pique the interest of the kids and just hot glued them on to the aluminum roasting pan. Then I put a little sticker that said “out” for outside the plate and “in” on the plate.
Students were invited to grab a handful of cubes, count them out and then drop them in the tray and count how many were in the plate and out of the plate. Then record the decomposing sentence on their recording sheet!
When I worked at a high priority school (aka a school in a high poverty/welfare area) I quickly learned that these special days with specific coloured shirts could be a burden to families who couldn’t afford to buy one and didn’t already own a shirt in that colour. One of my grade partners said that she always has little shirts to colour and tape/pin on the kids who don’t have the coloured shirts but want to participate available and ever since I have been setting this centre out on these special shirt days!
The kids are invited to colour the shirt and they bring it to an educator. We tape it on their shirt for them with the thick masking tape!
On Pink Shirt Day we also talked about the shirts we were wearing (many of the kids wore actual Pink Shirt Day shirts) and brainstormed other kindness and anti-bullying shirts we could design! Then the kids were invited to draw their shirts at centre time. You can see my example in the image above…
and here are some of their creations! I cut them out so that we were able to fit more shirts on our bulletin board!
We also read “The Invisible Boy” by Tracy Ludwig and “One” by Kathryn Otoshi and talked about what we learned about anti-bullying and choosing kindness from each book!
21. DESIGN A PINK SHIRT WITH LOOSE PARTS
I got this idea from @keepingupwithkindies on Instagram! It was a great paper free loose parts provocation for Pink Shirt Day! I had a few people request that I share this but unfortunately I didn’t add enough design elements to the clip art so I am not able to share it (per Terms of Use of clip art artist) but hopefully you can use the idea! My kids enjoyed this activity and I think I will make it a staple for Pink Shirt Day from now on!
22. FEBRUARY BULLETIN BOARD
After putting up our Pink Shirt Day learning, we finally finished up our February bulletin board!
We have our learning about Valentine’s Day, Black History Month, Family Day and Pink Shirt Day up on the board.
The kids learned about Garret Morgan, George Crumb and Katherine Johnson as part of their Black History Month learning and showcased their learning with pictures and words!
Our family popsicle houses went with our Family Day read alouds and oral responses that I recorded for them.
And we finished off the board with our Pink Shirt Day learning!
23. BIRTHDAY CUPCAKE PLAY DOUGH
I’ve posted about this activity in the past but thought I’d take an updated picture and post about it again since it is soooo popular every year! All you need is play dough (a big batch preferably!), number candles, candles, silicone cupcake liners and some small loose parts (I often use beads or rhinestones). Throw them in a tray and invite kids to make birthday cupcakes! It naturally will have students identifying numbers, counting, creating sets that match etc!
This year I added some vanilla extract to my play dough but next year I think I’ll offer chocolate play dough too at this centre!
24. SOUND IT OUT
One area that is a big need in our classroom is identifying beginning and ending sounds. So I created these sheets for the kids to practice at centre time! I printed and laminated them and set them out with magnetic letters but you could also set them out with dry erase markers!
I had many requests to share these when I first showed a sneak peek on Instagram so I put them up in my TPT store! You can click here or on the image below if you want to check it out:
25. DECOMPOSING ON RINGS
We are working on decomposing numbers in math right now so I made up this new activity. I used to use unifix cubes for this activity but my new school doesn’t have them.. and then I found these rings in the party section and thought the rings would work even better!
I made 2 versions, one with just decomposing on one hand (shown above) and one with decomposing on 2 hands. You can grab these for FREE by clicking here or on the image below:
That’s it for this month!
I hope you were able to grab some ideas to use in your classroom!
I love sharing lessons and activities that have worked well in my Kindergarten classroom to provide you with engaging ideas and to help you cut down your planning time!
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