Back to School Centers for Kindergarten

Teachers often enjoy summer sitting by the pool or catching up on their reading list. However, they also spend time reflecting on the previous year and planning for the upcoming year. Honestly, the teacher's brain never shuts off! Between finding new decorations and classroom management techniques, there is much to prepare over summer break. For instance, hands-on centers are often at the top of the to-do list! Centers keep students focused while allowing the teacher to work with small groups of students. Thankfully, the Back to School Centers for Kindergarten are the perfect way to set the tone for a fantastic year! 

Importance of Centers in Kindergarten 

Kindergarten is such an emotional year for students! They are away from their parents for an entire school day while learning so much content. Honestly, there is so much for kindergarteners to handle each day. Luckily, centers help young learners work on many skills in an enjoyable format! For instance, centers are the perfect time to incorporate hands-on play during learning. During this time, they can also work on social skills by compromising and sharing with classmates. Additionally, students have more opportunities to talk, which means they are working on oral language skills. Centers also occur in a small group format, so the teacher can work with and get to know students better. Ultimately, centers are an incredible way to make learning meaningful, personal, and impactful. 

Back to School Centers for Kindergarten

These are the perfect back-to-school math and literacy centers for kindergarten! Since the beginning of the year can be extra stressful, every activity is low-prep. However, the 5 ELA and 5 math centers are engaging, hands-on, and FUN! 

ELA Focus:

The growth students show during kindergarten is astonishing. Many enter the classroom being nonreaders and leave reading fluently! Specifically, the kindergarten ELA centers focus on letter writing and sorting using dry-erase markers and manipulatives. Additionally, they focus on upper and lowercase letter matching as well as name building. This includes writing their names and classmates' names! Students will even work on fine motor practice, such as tracing lines and shapes. 

 

 
Math Focus:

Numbers can be so challenging for students! There are many different skills to learn, so the entire subject can seem intense. Luckily, the kindergarten math centers show students how fun the subject can be. Specifically, they will work on shape building with playdoh and shape tracing with a dry erase marker. Students will also work on counting and matching as well as number writing. They will even work on fine motor skills through coloring activities. Students will love working during the hands-on centers! 

 

Optional Assessments:

When students enter kindergarten, they are at different learning levels. Truly, this is why lesson planning can be so challenging. To help support planning, each center comes with a printable. This is an excellent informal assessment to see if students have mastered each skill. Teachers can then use these results to plan the first few weeks of school. 

 

Honestly, the Back to School Centers for Kindergarten will show students how engaging and exciting their classroom is! While the quick prep centers do not take long to prepare, they keep students motivated while working on essential skills. Ultimately, students have fun learning while the teacher spends time getting to know their new class. 

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Fine Motor Activities for Kindergarten

Kindergarten is a crucial year in a child’s education. First, they learn so much content. This includes everything from addition to writing sentences. Second, students learn about collaboration. They learn to work with all classmates, share, and compromise. Third, students learn all about routines and expected behavior in the classroom. Fine motor skills are at the heart of so many of these aspects. For instance, students must practice pencil grasp to line up numbers to add and write a sentence. Likewise, students must learn how to maintain behavior while struggling to cut across a dotted line. Thus, it is imperative to include fine motor activities in kindergarten. 

Importance of Fine Motor Skills 

Teachers have to get through so many standards each year. Importantly, they do not want just to teach the standard once. They want to teach and review standards all year for students to master learning. Hence, it can be stressful to think about adding another element to lesson planning. However, it is essential that students work on fine motor skills since they are a crucial part of life. These skills involve using the small muscles in the hand, fingers, and thumb. Since these muscles control many vital tasks throughout life, students must strengthen them early on. Then, students will have more time to develop and improve fine motor skills as they continue to grow. By incorporating fine motor learning into classroom lessons, students will strengthen their muscles and brains! 

Fine Motor Activities with an Academic Focus 

Thankfully, there are incredible resources to help strengthen fine motor skills while focusing on academics. 

1. Kindergarten Craft Bundle 

This bundle is the perfect way to blend art and academic skills. There are thirteen options, such as a crayon box color craft, to ensure students work on multiple skills. They will work on following directions, self-management, cleaning up, and specific skills within the craft. For instance, this may be counting, working on name activities, and writing. Additionally, students will work on many kindergarten fine motor skills. This includes cutting, gluing, coloring, and pencil grasp. Students will have a blast with these fine motor activities for kindergarten! 

2. Builder Sets 

Students often learn best through hands-on activities. Since numbers and letters can be so challenging to learn, creating activities where students can manipulate items is helpful. Luckily, this build set has mats where students build numbers and letters using builder blocks. There are mats for uppercase letters, lowercase letters, and numbers. Additionally, this building activity works great for fine motor centers, independent practice, or early finishers. Students will love improving hand strength while learning numbers and letters! 

3. Play Dough Bundle 

Play dough is so much fun! Students don’t even realize how helpful working with play dough is when developing fine motor skills. In this bundle, students will practice building and writing letters, sight words, and CVC words. Number mats will be ready soon! 

4. Build-It Mats

Working with manipulatives is an incredible way to work on fine motor skills. Thus, these “build-it mats” have students build numbers, shapes, and letters using manipulatives. Students will love working on academics through such a fun activity. 

5. Color by Code

Coloring is a great way to build fine motor skills. Honestly, it can be challenging for students to learn how to control a crayon to stay within the lines. Thankfully, these color-by-code activities combine this skill with learning the ABCs. 

6. Sensory Bin 

Students love sensory bins! They contain many hands-on activities that allow students to “dig” in a bin for different items. This bundle has themed activities for September through August. The activities all focus on academics, such as letters and numbers, with fine motor learning. 

Students love hands-on activities. Teachers love when students are smiling through lessons and showing growth. Thankfully, all of the fine motor activities for kindergarten above are engaging and educational! Students will love working on academics without realizing how much fine motor learning they are doing. 

If you do not want to miss any of the upcoming lessons, join my email list to be notified of all the interactive lessons coming up! By joining the email list, you will also receive freebies for blog exclusive subscribers!  

Kindergarten Readiness Activities and Centers

My son is officially in Kindergarten right now.  And last summer I was prepping him to enter Kinder at a private school.  After he took his admissions assessment I panicked a little because there was a gap from his TK class to where he needed to be so that he was a little ahead for the first day of school.  Out of that, I created this Ready for Kindergarten Resource.

Before I show it to you, you need to know it covers WAY more skills than just "entering kinder" standards.  Depending on where you work, there are different expectations for the students (we can save that discussion for another day, lol) AND kids are at different levels, so I wanted centers and learning goals that would challenge kids, no matter where they are at.

Let's take a looksie! I can't wait for you to see it! 

The whole resource is centered around the Learning Goals.  There are over 35 cards that you could choose from to practice different learning goals.  You could place them in a pocket chart, like I did, and just display a couple at a time, OR fill the chart up.  It comes with a recording sheet (one for the students and one for the teacher) to color or check off once the students master each skill!  The best part...

...every learning goal comes with an interactive center to match it! So the students can focus on one of the learning goals, and play the center game to practice!

⭐️HOW TO USE THIS⭐️

Display the learning goals in a pocket chart, on the white board, or on a bulletin board in your room.  You could have 3 learning goals for the week, or showcase all of them at once!  Pick one to focus on for the day, and pull out the matching center game (or printables) to match it.  The kids can practice the center with the goal of mastering each skill.  Once a skill is mastered they can color the printable version of the Learning Goals.  This will keep them motivated and YOU organized to see who knows what!

⭐️WHEN TO USE THIS⭐️

You could use this resource at the END of TK, preschool, or Pre-k.  This would be perfect to use the summer before Kindergarten as well. But a lot of people love using this the first trimester of Kindergarten.  These make perfect back to school centers, or even as a review all year long.  If there is a skill your students are struggling with, you can pull out the center for review!

Check out what learning goals are included!!!

MATH:

⭐️Count 5 objects

⭐️Count 10 objects

⭐️Write numbers to 5

⭐️Write numbers to 10

⭐️Count to 5

⭐️Count to 10

⭐️Count to 15

⭐️Count to 20

⭐️Draw shapes

⭐️Recognize shapes 

⭐️Recognize colors 

⭐️Put numbers in order 

ELA:

⭐️Say uppercase letter sounds

⭐️Say lowercase letter sounds

⭐️Say the first sound in a word

⭐️Match uppercase and lower case letters 

⭐️Write lowercase letters

⭐️Write uppercase letters

⭐️Recognize lowercase letters

⭐️Recognize uppercase letters

BASIS SKILLS:

⭐️Draw a self portrait

⭐️Write first name

⭐️Write last name

⭐️Cut with scissors

⭐️Draw a self portrait 

ADVANCED SKILLS:

⭐️Put letters in order 

⭐️Read CVC words

⭐️Blend sounds in a word

⭐️Build words

⭐️Segment sounds in a word

⭐️Count by 5s

⭐️Count by 10s

⭐️Write numbers to 15

⭐️Write numbers to 20

⭐️Count 15 objects

⭐️Count 20 objects

Print- and-go Printables Included:

✅Draw a self portrait

✅Name writing

✅Cutting

✅Number tracing

✅Number writing

✅Counting

✅Fill in the missing number

✅Uppercase letter tracing

✅Lowercase letter tracing

✅Letter matching (upper and lowercase)

✅Letter Hunt (upper and lowercase)

Head over and check out the Ready for Kindergarten Resource to simplify and streamline student mastery of beginning kinder skills!

St. Patrick’s Day Class Party

Holidays are so much fun to celebrate in the classroom. Whether a significant holiday or a smaller holiday, the event is extra special for students. Therefore, teachers work hard to ensure that students have festive activities to celebrate the day with their classmates. However, there is so much content to get through each year, so it can be stressful to give up a day to celebrate. Thankfully, this does not have to be the case! The St. Patrick's Day Activity Bundle will ensure that any St. Patrick’s Day class party has learning, crafts, and laughter. 

When is St. Patrick’s Day?

St. Patrick’s Day occurs on Thursday, March 17th. Thus, now is the perfect time to plan fun class party centers!

Tips for Successful Class Party Centers 

Simply put, students will have even more energy when there is a special event. Therefore, these days require a bit more planning. Luckily, the tips below will help ensure centers go smoothly! 

1. Detailed Planning: While a framework for a lesson works most days, it may not during a special celebration. Honestly, these days require structure and organization. Additionally, creating crafts requires more supplies than paper and pencils. While detailed planning takes time, it will be time well spent when students focus all day. 

2. Organization: When using class party centers, the organization will be essential. Due to student excitement, it will be vital to have each center ready to go before students arrive. If teachers are still gathering materials together, students may start misbehaving. Luckily, the St. Patrick's Day Activity Bundle contains many simple, engaging centers to use during a party! There are Color by Code activities, directed drawings, and Q-tip painting to ensure students have a blast! 

3. Independent Work: Not every party needs to have group projects. Honestly, a party can still be calming independent work. Thus, the St. Patrick's Day Activity Bundle contains DIY activities. This means that students can still talk to each other while working on their activities. Or, students can have quiet time throughout the day. Thankfully, all six activities allow teachers to have the choice on the completion format. From the snap cubes to the letter hunt peek-a-boo, this party will be one students always remember. 

Grab this freebie

4. Minimal Prep: Parties are EXHAUSTING! Thus, it is vital to remember that students will focus on time spent with classmates over elaborate activities. That is precisely why the St. Patrick's Day Activity Bundle focuses on minimal prep! Teachers just need to print and set out supplies. All six crafts focus on high engagement with little prep work. 

Heart of the Party 

Before planning elaborate party activities or details, remember that students like simple things. At the end of the day, they will remember the laughter shared with classmates and the teacher’s attention. That is precisely why the St. Patrick's Day Activity Bundle focuses on activities with little prep but high levels of student engagement. 

St. Patrick’s Day is such an exciting day for students. They love seeing leprechauns, rainbows, pots of gold, and shamrocks. Thankfully, the St. Patrick's Day Activity Bundle contains six incredible activities that students will love working on!  

If you do not want to miss any of the upcoming lessons, join my email list to be notified of all the interactive lessons coming up! By joining the email list, you will also receive freebies for blog exclusive subscribers!