STEM Activities

By now, you should know my love for STEM learning. These activities inspire young learners to use their problem-solving skills to solve the challenges. 

My Easter STEM Set #1 includes activities such as egg stacking and jelly bean predictions. 

My Easter STEM Learning Set #2 includes even more hands-on activities featuring egg experiments and marshmallow bunnies.

Math Activities

Another way to include Easter fun and learning is with math centers. Your students will enjoy sorting colors, counting manipulatives, strengthening fine motor skills, and following directions with my Easter Themed Math Centers set. This set includes five different center options with at least eight cards for each center. 

Crafts and Writing Activities

My Easter Crafts and Writing Activities set is full of hands-on learning opportunities. Each craft includes several writing prompts. I also include a Resource List with free YouTube links to videos of read alouds, songs, etc., for you to use in your classroom discussions. Your students will love learning with these fun Easter crafts and writing prompts!

Drawing and Writing

If writing and directed drawings are your preference, I’ve got you covered. My Easter Directed Drawings set includes nine images with seven different printable options for each so you can easily differentiate. Images include: Easter bunny, peep, lily, church, chocolate bunny, Easter basket, Easter egg, and carrot.

I also have a Draw & Write Easter Prompts set. Your students will love completing these drawing and writing activities.

Sensory Bins

You can incorporate Easter fun and learning with my Easter Sensory Bin activities. Not only are these a great sensory activity, they include math and literacy practice, too. 

As you can see, there are so many fun math, literacy, STEM, and hands-on activities that you can do that include Easter themes this time of year. I’m always a big fan of keeping students engaged with activities that reflect the current season and holiday.

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Apple Books

Hello, World! How Do Apples Grow? 

This board book is the perfect nonfiction book that is written in clear and easy terms. From apple seed to apple tree and then farm to store, this delightful book with cheerful illustrations is a perfect way to introduce apples to young children. 

How Do Apples Grow?

You’re not seeing double. This book is also called How Do Apples Grow, but it’s another good one and worth sharing. In this book, readers learn how an apple grows from bud to flower to fruit. It’s the perfect informative text.

Apple Picking Day!

Do you ever use readers as a read aloud? They often have great illustrations and are full of good vocabulary. I also like that after reading them, students have a better chance of re-reading and retelling because it is a reader. This adorable rhyming book is about a sister and brother who celebrate autumn by taking a trip to a local apple orchard.

Apple Trees and the Seasons

Follow the apple trees throughout the year and watch what happens to them during each season. This is a great nonfiction text. 

Amelia Bedelia’s First Apple Pie

Who doesn’t love a good Amelia Bedelia book? Amelia loves Fall and her favorite thing to do is pick apples. In this book, Amelia bakes her first apple pie with her grandma. Of course there is a problem but she has a solution. This is the perfect book to pair with your apple pie tasting. 

Bad Apple: A Take of Friendship

When an apple named Mac meets a worm named Will, they become best friends. Apples and worms aren’t supposed to be friends though, so Mac gets called names that hurt his feelings. Mac has to decide if he will stand up to his bullies and keep his friend Will. There is a positive moral to this story, which will lead to great lessons on friendship and character.

Apples

This book is full of so much apple goodness: vocabulary, picture diagrams, apple varieties, and more. This is the perfect introduction or ending to your apple week.

Applesauce Day

Maria and her family visit an apple orchard and pick apples. Then it’s time to turn the apples into applesauce! Every year they use the special pot that has been in the family for generations to make applesauce. First they wash the apples. Then Grandma cuts them into quarters. Follow each step in the process as everyone helps to make delicious applesauce!

More Hands-On Apple FUN!

When prepping my Apple Unit, Bennett wanted to try on the apple hat and kept saying, “Cheese!” Sweet baby, you can tell that his mom takes all the pictures, and he definitely loved “helping” with all of the apple activities, especially the sensory tub. You can click here to see more.

Outside of reading, hands-on learning experiences are my FAVORITE. This is one of three art projects in this apple unit. Have you ever painted with apples?

Sensory tubs are a great way for your young learner to have developmental experiences using all of their senses while also building their cognitive skills. In this sensory tub, children are “making apple pie” with an educational spin. You can add a few cinnamon sticks to entice their sense of smell, too. Kids will love this! You can check this out by clicking here. 

We hope you enjoyed our book list. We LOVE incorporating APPLES in literacy, math, art and STEM. Check out our Apple Learning Set by clicking here. 

If you are looking for a list of Teacher Approved Apple VIDEOS, Simply Kinder has you covered. You can see them by clicking here. 

Happy teaching!

**Posts on Kreative in Life may contain affiliate links which means we make a very small percentage off of your purchase but that does not affect your price. 

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Tip # 1: Be Consistent

I know we have all heard the many names for CVCE words. Bossy E, Magic E, and Silent E are all helpful for helping students to remember the purpose of the “e” at the end of words. If using Bossy E, you can tell students that the “e” at the end of the word is the boss, and it tells the other vowels in the word to say their name. If teaching with Magic E, explain that when the “e” is at the end of the word, it magically changes the vowel in order to make it say its long sound. 

You can also use Silent E and remind students that the “e” at the end doesn’t make any sound at all; it just lets us know to change the sound of the earlier vowel. I have even heard some teachers use the term Mama E, and say that, “Mama E makes the short baby vowels say their name.” 

Regardless of which term you decide to use, I recommend that you stay consistent by sticking only with that one. It can be confusing for students to hear all of those different terms thrown around when they essentially mean the same thing. Instead, choose which term you think your students would relate to and remember the most, and use it throughout your CVCE lessons. 

Tip # 2: Be Explicit

Like all other skills, the CVCE pattern is a skill that you have to explicitly teach. However, before students are even ready for CVCE, they need to know the difference between short and long vowels. Explicitly teach that short vowels are the vowel sounds that we hear in CVC words, but long vowels sound the same as the name of each vowel. That way, when you are teaching CVCE words, students already know that vowels can make different sounds within words. 

Then, you can also be explicit as you teach whichever term you chose (Magic, Silent or Bossy E) and co-create an anchor chart with students that will help them remember. Have students think of words they may have heard or seen that have a long vowel sound. Record their correct answers on the chart. If possible, include pictures on the chart and really emphasize anywhere you have the “e” written. For example, if you have the word “cane” on a Magic E anchor chart, include a picture of a cane, and put the “e” inside of a star! Explicitly teaching CVCE words with lessons and anchor charts that students can refer back to will help students to grasp the concept more easily.

Tip # 3: Provide Multiple Exposures

My last tip for teaching CVCE words to young children is to give them a variety of CVCE activities that address this skill. Anytime I introduce a new skill, I first like to give students opportunities to focus on that skill alone, before having them use it alongside others. What I mean by this is that before I expect students to read CVCE words in a text or differentiate between CVC and CVCE words, I first give them activities that only focus on the CVCE word patterns or spelling patterns.

When first introducing CVCE words, I have students match the onset and rime of a CVCE word using a puzzle-like activity that includes a picture. This helps them to start recognizing the pattern. Then, as they become more familiar with CVCE words, they move on to more difficult activities. This includes first reading the onset and rime, and then choosing the picture that matches the word.

After students practice reading CVCE words in a few different ways, they can look at CVCE pictures on a spelling mat and figure out how to make the word using either magnetic letters or dry-erase markers. By practicing the same skill over and over again in different ways, students build mastery in reading and writing CVCE words. 

Many students struggle with learning how to read and write CVCE words. Most of the year is focused on CVC words, where vowels make their short sounds. Teaching CVCE words changes the phonics rules they have learned and seems to throw them for a loop! By being consistent in how you refer to this new phonics rule, being explicit in how you teach it, and providing students with multiple chances to practice the skill, your students will master it in no time! If you have any questions about this blog post, feel free to ask in the comment below!

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Prepping for Name Crafts

Before doing the name craft projects in your classroom, there is a little bit of prep work. With each craft, students’ names are already printed in certain areas of the craft. For example, for the Easter craft, I have students’ names both on the basket and as individual letters on eggs that students will later glue in order in the basket. 

For St. Patrick’s Day, I have names on a spoon and as lucky cereal pieces to be put inside a bowl. This fun craft actually allows kids to play with their food!

You might think that it’s a hassle to have to type each student’s name on a basket, and then type it again letter by letter on each page of the file. However, the great thing about this product is that it is an editable .pdf document that automatically updates as you enter the names. What I mean by this is that you will only have to type each student’s name one time on the first page, and then it will autofill each student’s name on the baskets throughout the document. While there is a little prep work for doing the name crafts in the classroom, having the editable .pdf format does take out a lot of the time needed to prepare! The best way to prep fun activities is the most efficient one!

Completing the Project

Once it’s time for students to actually start working on the name craft, there are two parts of the project. During the first part, students color their craft. Like in our earlier Easter craft example, there are eggs and baskets to color, cut, and glue with a simple glue stick. They’ll have the best time using different colors as a creative way to express themselves.

Then, like with many of my seasonal crafts, I also like to include a writing prompt. It gives students a chance to use some of their academic skills along with their crafting skills. It’s a great time to practice sight words while also having a lot of fun. The best part? This also allows a meaningful way to create memories and gives you the perfect excuse to showcase your student’s hard work!

Displaying Name Crafts

As mentioned before, when displaying the name crafts, I like to put students’ written pieces with their crafts. Then, you can hang them in the hallway, on a bulletin board, or even on your classroom door. However, you also have the choice of only doing the craft, if that’s what you prefer for your seasonal display!

Either way, your students will love seeing their classroom decorated with something they put a lot of effort into! Most young students, such as our kindergarteners, love seeing their name displayed anywhere and everywhere—but especially in the classroom. Adding that to a craft that they got to create on their own will make them feel pride in their work. It also helps them to feel like an important member of the class. Plus, it’s just lots of fun! Not only that, but since these name crafts have seasonal themes, they make great classroom decorations for holidays like Easter and St. Patrick’s Day. So much fun, right?

Name Activities

There are so many ways to practice learning their names, too. This can be done through hands-on learning centers, at home projects, etc. Tracing the letters of the name on the craft with a black marker is a simple and fun activity to add too.

There are so many different ways to make name activities fun and engaging. It’s the perfect way to engage kids of all ages. It’s an easy craft they will want to do over and over again. Not only are they learning how to spell their names, they are learning to recognize the letters in their name. This is a big win! Only further making them more than proud to show off their finished product.

I have a lot of fun crafting fun lesson plans for my kiddos. Even if it’s just putting googly eyes  on a paper plate, hands on activities are fun for everyone!  What do you think of these art activities? What are some of your favorites? Let me know in the comments below!

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When choosing activities, it is important to keep in mind what type of devices you want students to be able to use. For that reason, there are two platforms that are really useful when implementing kindergarten digital activities—Seesaw and Boom Learning. Both platforms have apps and websites that students can access on computers, phones, and tablets, and both support activities that cover a wide array of kindergarten skills!

Boom Learning

Boom Cards, hosted at Boom Learning provide a great resource for digital activities for kindergarten. Students can get immediate feedback, and each activity is very interactive. For example, if you wanted to address a skill like CVC words with Boom Cards, students could look at a picture that represents a CVC word and use letters on the card to build the word. Then, they can click a button on the screen to check their work. If they are correct, the program rewards them with a little “ding” and green circles to show them which parts they were successful with! Boom Cards work in a similar way with other skills like sight words. Students can build the words, and then check their answers. 

Your students can also practice different kindergarten math skills on Boom Learning. If you want students to practice a skill like addition, students can do that using Boom Cards, as well. If your students are at the stage where they are still using pictures to help them solve math problems, you can choose “decks” of cards where pictures are provided, and they can choose the correct answer from number choices on the card. For more advanced students, the card displays the problem only, and students use their keyboards to type in the answer! With Boom Learning, the options of kindergarten skills that you can address are limitless!

Seesaw

Seesaw is another great platform to use when you want to introduce your students to digital activities for kindergarten. Unlike Boom Learning, this platform does not give immediate feedback. However, it is just as interactive for students, and you can use it to address just as many skills! For example, if you want your students to work on sight words, you can assign an activity like my Seesaw Build a Sight Word set. On each slide of the activity, there are different pictures, and students can even click a speaker on the slide in order to hear the word. Then, they choose the drawing tool from the tools section on Seesaw and build the sight word shown on the screen!

There are other tools students can use when completing digital learning activities on this platform, as well. There is a tool to click and drag, an option to create a text box if needed, and a tool students can use to easily add a picture or voice recording. When students have completed the tasks on each slide, they simply submit their work, and it is available to you as the teacher to check!

Including digital activities in your classroom is so important to start building your students’ computer skills. Not only that, but these types of activities are so handy any time your district has to go into distance learning mode, and you have to rely on different forms of instruction. Using platforms like Boom Learning and Seesaw are great because they are interactive, can be used to address a variety of skills, and are fun for students! 

What do you think about these digital activities for children? I’d love to hear what alternative digital activities you have found helpful! For more kindergarten-friendly content, check out my other posts here!

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Centers Allow for Exploration

Kindergarteners are still very curious and desire to seek, explore, and ask questions about the world around them. The most authentic type of learning involves little minds seeking and investigating the answers to their own questions. One of the benefits of centers in kindergarten is that they allow for creativity and free exploration of senses. Play is the best way for students to develop cognitively and become independent thinkers.

As a teacher during centers, you should act more as a guide than as an instructor. You should be listening for questions or issues that arise, asking questions to your students, and modeling something when a student asks. Listen to your students use their reasoning skills and help them make connections and discoveries. Remember to always let your students create their own learning experience during this time.

Centers Encourage Self-Expression and Creativity

In art centers, students can mold, shape, draw, paint, and color freely. This creates a prime opportunity for students to develop self-expression skills. During free play, such as an art center, little minds can create without the fear of failure. Children can take risks and create openly without restrictions or guidelines. They get to focus on the process rather than the outcome. Centers where students can draw, paint, or create other forms of art are also great opportunities for students to practice their fine-motor-skills.

Centers Strengthen Communication Skills

This is not a perfect world, so your students more than likely will share either stations or supplies with a classmate during center time. This allows little ones to interact with others during play. Many centers even encourage role play,  such as a doctor, playing house, or a dress-up game. During centers, your students will communicate with their peers in a playful, but also a real-world manner. This allows them to develop communication skills, build relationships, and understand social cues and concepts. Through center play with peers, students can grow and sharpen emotional and social skills. Socio-emotional growth is important in early childhood but also as students mature.  

There are many variations of centers to try in your classroom. They are equally important in the process of learning. While centers look like play, they include an aspect of learning as little minds are being sculpted and formed.

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It can seem impossible to help students understand counting on. However, with a strong foundation and repetition, we can help our kindergarteners go from counting objects to counting on to help them solve math problems. In addition, using fun number games is an interactive way to teach pattern recognition and counting higher numbers!

Represented Quantities

As with many math skills, a great way to practice counting on in kindergarten is with task cards. In the early stages of this skill, I use task cards where students count numbers in a set. Then, they count on from that set using either pictures or numbers to represent the two following larger numbers. We want students to hold a given number in their head and add one at a time to know how many objects to draw or what number to write in the recording sheet.

This task relies on quantities represented with objects, with students only counting one at a time. Therefore, this math activity is a fun way to transition into counting on. In addition, students can later use this important skill when solving math problems.

Numbers and Objects

When students are ready to move on to the next stage and understand the relationship between numbers and the quantities they represent, they can perform tasks that use both numbers and objects. For example, you can give students task cards with a number 5 plus an illustration of 3 fingers. This lets students know to hold the number 5 in their head and then use one-to-one correspondence to count on.

To make this task a little more complicated, give students a card with the number 5 plus the number 3 with a space showing the quantity 3 underneath. After completing their illustration, students can use the same counting skills mentioned above. This task just puts a little more responsibility on the students. Using a mixture of numbers and objects to represent quantities gets students used to counting on but still uses one-to-one correspondence.

Counting On with Numbers Only

Counting on with numbers only is another great idea when teaching counting on to kindergarten students. Because students only count on one number at a time, the task is not much different from using represented quantities. However, it is important to remember that before students can do this type of task, they need number recognition skills. In addition, they need a strong number sense to help them make the connection between numbers and quantities.

After they have these two things down, they are ready to do number activities where there is a single written number, and they have to write down the two numbers that come next. When they get to teen numbers, they see that it is much easier to start at a number like 15 and quickly get to 16 and 17 versus starting at one and counting through each number before arriving at 15, 16, and 17.

Of course, the next step after these fun counting activities is to count on using two numbers in an addition problem. This simple activity requires students to hold the first or larger written number in their head. Then, they can count up how many times the other number in the problem indicates the number. This activity is great practice for determining the next number in a number sequence.

Final Thoughts on Teaching Counting On in Kindergarten

By practicing the activities above, students can get the hang of counting on in no time. By starting your students at their skill level and progressing to more complex tasks as they are ready is crucial to skills like counting on. This is why it is essential to have task cards and activities that are slightly different. In addition, an important step when teaching numbers is to repeat similar activities. We know that repetition plays a huge role in our students’ abilities to master difficult math concepts!

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Our students likely feel the same way. After listening to us talk for a while, they begin getting fidgety, and you can see them getting restless in their seats. This is why brain breaks are so important for students. They help them regain focus and offer many more benefits in the classroom.

REFOCUS

As mentioned before, students often lose focus when listening to a teacher talk for a while or when dedicating their brain power to independent work. Their minds begin to wonder. Just like in our professional development scenario before, they may start thinking about how they can give themselves a break. Maybe they will ask for an unneeded trip to the water fountain or bathroom. Maybe they will choose to disrupt a classmate who is still hard at work by talking. Either way, they are taking their brain power away from the task at hand and can possibly be causing disruptions to the students around them. 

Brain Breaks can be a great way to combat this! Students can do a quick activity to get their bodies moving, and then get back to what they were working on. 

STRUCTURED BREAK

As we have already discussed, students will find a way to give themselves a brain break if they truly need one. However, it is probably not going to be in the best manner. Many times, it may even result in negative consequences for the student when we have to redirect their behavior. 

By using brain breaks, students still get the down time that their minds need to refocus but in a more structured way. One type of brain break that I like to use includes using animal actions to get students moving out of their seats. I call out actions like, “Fly like a bird,” or “Walk like a crab.” Keeping it structured in this way will keep students from getting too wild during the break, while still giving their brain a much-needed break.

CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

One of the best pieces of classroom management advice I have ever received is to anticipate negative behaviors and try to avoid them. Brain breaks do just that. We can see when students begin fidgeting in their chairs. We can notice that they are not as focused on the tasks as they should be. That is when brain breaks are going to be most effective. 

Essentially, they let students get their energy out in a productive way, before they choose to get it out in an unproductive way. Then later on, you can avoid stopping the learning time by having to correct behaviors like getting out of their chair without permission, talking loudly to a friend, and fidgeting with supplies that they don’t currently need. 

Overall, there are many benefits of brain breaks with your students on a regular basis. They give students a structured break and a chance to refocus. They can also help students avoid disruptive behaviors by giving them a chance to release some energy in a more productive way. 

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Multiple Exposures

Before students can master any sight word, they need multiple exposures to the word. They need to see and hear it used in sentences. They need to practice writing it correctly, and they need to memorize the letters that make up that sight word. 

Sight word readers do a great job of giving students multiple exposures. For example, in my Sight Word Books product, there are places to trace the focus word, read it using one-to-one correspondence, and read it within simple sentences. Overall, teaching sight words by creating books helps give students multiple (and various) exposures to words, which will make it more likely for the word to stick. 

Fun for Students

Another reason why I love teaching sight words with books is because they are fun for students! On another page of my Sight Word Books, students have to “rainbow write” the word. This simply means that they take a crayon of each color of the rainbow, and trace the word using those different colors. Students love making the word colorful and bright!

However, activities like this are not only for fun. They serve another purpose as well. As mentioned before, students have to memorize the letters that make up a sight word, because either the word is not decodable or the students do not yet have the skills to decode the word. By writing the letters over and over again using different colors, the students are committing the letters in the word to memory. 

Because the various activities are put together within a book, rather than on a worksheet, they seem newer to students. This sense of novelty makes learning sight words more exciting for them. As students have fun creating their sight word readers, they will be more engaged, which will help them to memorize their sight words.

Students Have Something to Refer Back To

Something else I love about sight word readers is that the learning does not have to stop once the books are completed. Let’s face it, when students take a worksheet home, it probably goes straight to the trash. However, they are more likely to hold on to a book that they made. They can refer back to it over and over again and continue practicing that sight word. 

You can even let students keep them within the classroom to reread. Many kindergarten classrooms have places where students can store books for independent reading time. Typically, these are familiar and simple texts that are the students’ level. Sight word books would be great for this! With sight word books, students can continually practice their sight words either at home or in the classroom. 

Throughout the year, sight word books can be a great way to teach and reinforce sight words. Not only are they fun for students, but they are also purposeful. They give students multiple and various exposures to each sight word and give students something to learn from, even after the books are created. 

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The Focus on Print

Perhaps one of the biggest differences between phonics and phonemic awareness activities is the focus on print. When it comes to phonics, there is a huge emphasis on letter sounds and their connection to print. For example, students are taught letter sounds while making the connection to letter names and which letter of the alphabet makes those individual sounds. The awareness of the sounds

Phonemic awareness, on the other hand, involves activities that do not include print. Instead, students focus solely on the sounds in words and the different sounds they make, without tying the sounds to a written word. For example, in phonemic awareness, a teacher might say simple words like the word cat, and then ask the student to isolate the beginning sound. The student simply responds “/c/”. This is a great start to the relationship of sounds.

However, if a teacher asks the student to identify the first letter in each whole word, it becomes a phonics activity. A phonics activity might be a worksheet, where a student looks at a picture and writes down the first letter of the word. Another example of a phonics activity involves the student completing a first sound sort by letter categories. 

Students are definitely still using phonemic awareness skills during the second example, but because there is an emphasis on print and the written word, it becomes a phonics activity.

When They Should be Taught

Kindergarten classrooms include learning specific skills like phonemic awareness and phonics activities nearly every day. Many teachers and phonics programs bundle them together because they are so intertwined, especially as students develop reading skills. It is important to note that students DO need to have a grasp on some phonics knowledge and phonemic awareness skills before mastering phonics skills. They need to have an understanding of the sounds in words BEFORE they begin connecting them to print. This means that phonemic awareness skills need to be taught first, if not alongside, phonics skills. 

Without tying sounds to letters, consider how hard it would be for students to segment words in order to write them. Likewise, not tying sounds to letters makes it difficult to blend words together in order to read them. If a child doesn’t practice identifying first sounds tied to a letter, it becomes difficult to write the letter that makes the first sound in a word. Clearly, students who are struggling to learn phonics skills may need more experience manipulating sounds first. 

Phonemic Awareness and Phonics Conclusion

We know that both phonemic awareness and phonics are key components for an early reader—truly a crucial skill. Understanding the difference between the two ensures that we include plenty of classroom experiences to address each area. Students need opportunities to practice phonics skills connected to written words and letters. They also need opportunities to practice phonemic awareness skills that are not. These building blocks enable them to enhance their skill level and become fluent readers with strong competencies. 

As you have seen throughout, I’ve left links to examples of phonemic awareness activities and examples of phonological awareness activities. These will do wonders teaching children key concepts and the different skills they need to be a phenomenal early reader. There are tons of different ways to teach children phonemic and phonics at an early age. Are there tips and tricks you love and would like to share? Let me know in the comments below!

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