Spring - a lovely season of more sunshine and blooming flowers! Color, activity and new beginnings. Let's have our students tend to a garden in a small group math activity and encourage their minds to bloom with foundational counting and emerging number sense.  For this game I'm using a page from the Pond Coloring Club (Pick a Flower) and flower cards from the Math Kit. Sunshine in the Garden - a math warm up or small group activity remind your students that flowers need water (rain) and sunshine to grow have a pile of flower cards and a coloring page take a flower card and copy the ..read more

Drawing Fun Snails with CrayonsSnails, with their beautiful shells and slow-paced nature, can be a delightful subject for drawing. And what better way to capture their charm than with colorful crayons? Help your children have a fun drawing session where they’ll practice a round circle shape and a curved (capital C) to integrate some early-handwriting skills too! Materials needed: a sheets of paper or pages from my printable pack a variety of crayons watercolors (optional) Instructions: Start by drawing 3 round ovals for the snail's shell (see photo below). Draw a curved letter C shape f ..read more

Here is a math warm up to get your kindergarten children counting to ten with counters. Use it to engage them before you start a mini lesson at the math table and to review and asses their counting and number sense. I've used the frog lilypad cards and dot cards (1s and 2s) from the Math Kit.  Using Counters in Math PlayUsing counters or blocks is important for:Hands-on learning:  Using physical objects like counters allows children to engage in hands-on learning, which research has shown to be effective in early math education.Concrete representation of numbers:  Counters prov ..read more

Drawing in kindergarten helps you integrate practice for fine motor skills with creativity and writing! Your children will be inspired to write about their drawing or join in discussion on the topic, using essential language and communication skills. Their artwork is ideal for a classroom display too. I have a new set of directed drawings in my store that all use a simple 3-hop movement to start. The hopping (or jumping) pattern is one they may already be familiar with from their handwriting fluency practice. This forward clockwise motion is important for learning to write letters like r, p, b ..read more

Interactive hands-on attendance charts are an important part of kindergarten classrooms. They provide a fun and engaging way for students to check in for the day and learn each other's names. You can use your students cute hen drawings to make a spring themed attendance chart. Draw a chicken coop on a large piece of art paper and ask your children to stick their chicken on the chart as they come in for the day.  When students have to find their names on the attendance chart, they are practicing reading and recognizing their names.  They are also learning the names of their classm ..read more

Let’s have a farm adventure in kindergarten - learning about hens, igniting creativity and practicing some essential fine motor skills for early writing. Spring is in the air, and it's time to bring the animals into the classroom! Drawing hens with colorful crayons is a fun and educational activity that will help kindergarteners learn about the farm and give you the opportunity to display some gorgeous happy artworks in your classroom.  Materials: Colorful crayons White paper Watercolors or other pains (I use watercolors a lot with little learners, not to necessarily teach watercolor ..read more

Have you noticed that spring is the ideal time to review the addition concept, strategies and facts with your learners? Just like gardens are a place of growth and accumulation, addition involves combining numbers to form a larger sum. Spring is a time of growth - flowers emerge and accumulate in abundance. Our new Tulip True Fact activity cards will give your students the opportunity to review addition and subtraction facts and find the true fact on each. They can mark it with a clip or marker. The resource includes 84 cards (half page in size) along with a recording worksheet ..read more

Addition is important in kindergarten - it's a foundational concept that will lead to other areas of math (including subtraction, multiplication and division). Try to do some addition every day - even if it's just in your lesson warm up.  Here are 3 fun and effective strategies to make addition fun in kindergarten: Provide Hands-On Activities: Play with equipment and engage students in games before using worksheets and written math journals.  Set up counting activities in your free or independent centers as well as having hands-on games in your structured math lessons and workshop ..read more

  Create a beautiful and vibrant paper tulip garden with just a few squares of paper and some crayons! It's a fun and easy activity for kids of all ages, and a great way to bring some springtime cheer indoors. Materials:Square pieces of paper (any size) Crayons Scissors (optional) Instructions: Fold each square piece of paper in half diagonally, so that you have a triangle. Make a mini fold at the base to mark the center. Fold from the center point out on both sides. Open, glue if you’d like and draw a face! Add a paper scrap stem and leaves to incorporate more fine motor and sciss ..read more

Get ready for writing letters by practicing a clockwise and counterclockwise loop pattern in your pre-writing and early handwriting lessons in kindergarten. Practicing different lines and patterns with fluency helps children  develop the fine motor skills necessary for writing learn the circular motion ready for letters like e, o, p, a, c and more strengthen the muscles in the fingers, hands, and wrists develop spatial awareness and coordination.  Both the clockwise and counterclockwise loop pattern requires children to move their hands in a specific direction and to control t ..read more