Kindergarteners are a busy group of students. They like to touch, feel, explore, and understand everything they see. In order to keep them on task, learning, and entertained, kindergarten teachers are some of the busiest teachers around. Kindergarten teachers, I understand you and have some ways to make your life a little easier. I have compiled a list of ideas and winter activities for kindergarten. Take advantage of the change in seasons and get into some winter-themed activities for your kindergarten classroom.
Winter Skills in Kindergarten
Coming back from any break during the school year can be especially hard for kindergarteners who thrive on routine and order. When your kindergarten class comes back from winter break, which has probably been a nice, long break, you need to get back into the schedule of a school. This is a great time to review school rules and routines, but also to review skills already learned and practiced before break.
CVC Words
Coming back from winter break, something that many kindergarteners focus on is consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words. While teaching CVC words in whole group lessons, your students will need some extra practice on their own. One of my favorite winter activities is a fun matching resource that you can find by clicking on this link: CVC Penguin Word Match-Up.
In this FREE winter activity, your students get to work on CVC words by matching pictures to words and even getting a chance to spell out the words on their own. This resource is great to practice in small groups or even to use in your literacy centers. Your students will love the cute penguins, the matching CVC words they know and can read to pictures, and getting to try spelling CVC words.
Fine Motor Skills
Fine motor skills are super important in kindergarteners. They already love getting to feel, touch, and manipulate things with their hands, but practicing those skills to make their fine motor function even better is one of the most important things in kindergarten.
By combining fine motor skills and fun winter activities with academic review, your students won’t even realize they are learning. I know you already have some great ideas for your literacy centers, but adding some more fine motor activities to your library is always a bonus. In this Winter Activities – Sensory Bin Literacy Centers for January, your students will find all sorts of fun.
This resource contains 6 fine motor winter activities for your students to explore: Medial Vowel Sorting, CVC Look and Write, CVC Read and Color, CVC Read and Change, Missing Medial Vowel, and Word Family Sort. That will keep your kindergarteners busy all month!
You can never have enough ideas for fine motor skills for kindergarteners. The more resources you have, the better. Check out this link for even more ideas for your classroom. The Best Fine Motor Tools for Pre-K and Kindergarten is one of my favorite blogs that outlines great tools you may already have, as well as some new uses for them and some new tools you may have never considered. I challenge you to find something new for your classroom and to use your fine motor tools in a winter activity today!
Pro Teacher Tip
Take advantage of these great resources I’ve shared to personalize them for your classroom. These winter activities and fine motor activities are going to be great for your classroom. Use them this year and save them for next year. As you are setting up your centers, add new tools to your fine motor bin. You may like this blog post on The Best Fine Motor Tools for Pre-K and Kindergarten.
Get some new tools, reuse some old tools in a new way, or get some new and fun material to put in your sensory bins for new and unique winter fun. While you’re prepping, print, laminate, and save the instruction cards and student recording sheets for each center so that you have less to do incorporating your winter activities next year. Save yourself time and energy so that you are ready for next year and reuse these great resources again and again and again.
As teachers of the youngest learners in the school building, Kindergarten and Pre-K teachers have the busiest classrooms. Encourage their love of touching and feeling everything within their grasp with some great winter activities and fine motor activities. Help your kindergarteners review what they already know and jump into learning more about CVC words. What will you incorporate into your classroom for the winter season?
If you are interested in these literacy centers, or math ones just like it, click on the links below:
