kindergarten survival Archives

How to Make Alphabet Worksheets Fun

September 10, 2021 teachersbrain kindergarten survival, Reading

Teachers cringe in primary grades with they hear the word “worksheets”, but we all understand that they are important hands-on tools for developing readers and writers. They truly are the simplest and most straightforward way to give students lots of practice with the skills they need to learn.

Worksheets get a bad rap in my opinion!

If you have worksheets that require cutting, coloring, painting, folding, thinking, and creating, they serve as great learning tools for developing minds. It also gives students a variety of ways to practice their skills so they don’t get restless. They don’t have to be boring! There are so many ways to make them fun.

Center time is a great time to use worksheets.

This is because students can work together to create a group project or individually to learn beginning sounds, letter formation, and practice letter identification. These worksheets and crafts are great for that.

Here are some creative ways to use alphabet worksheets in your classroom

Add playdough to a worksheet to form letters for fine motor skills.
Add them into plastic sleeves and let students use dry erase markers to fill them out. This saves on paper and also gets students engaged because who doesn’t love using those markers?
Have a snowball fight with them afterward. Students will be more motivated to get their work completed and excited to do them! Just tell them when they are done with their worksheet, bring it to you to check, then if all is well, they can ball it up and make a snowball. When everyone is done, let the snowball fight begin!
Add a soccer goal or basketball hoop! This is a great way to get students up and moving. Once they complete their worksheet and have it checked off, they get to shoot a basket or kick their “ball” into the soccer goal.
Make crafts out of them! As mentioned above and in this post here, crafts are so great for little learners for so many reasons. If you are working on letters, have students create something with their letters. For example, turn the letter A into an alligator by coloring or painting, adding googly eyes, and a mouth.

I created these alphabet worksheets as a way to give students lots of practice with the letters of the alphabet without getting bored.

Each letter comes with a variety of activities and ways to practice. It is a complete A-Z bundle so it will be all you need for your reading or writing lessons!

What are your favorite ways to use worksheets in the classroom? Let me know in the comments!

4 Reasons Crafts Are Important In Kindergarten

August 27, 2021 teachersbrain Craft Ideas, kindergarten survival, Teaching Tips

Crafts are powerful tools for developing skills needed in reading and writing. Some think crafts are “fluff” or “busy work.” Continued research supports the value of crafts for young students.

Here Are 4 Reasons Crafts Are Important In Kindergarten

Fine Motor Skills.

Students at this age are still developing their fine motor skills. They are also still working on hand-eye coordination. Doing crafts in the classroom is fun and can help students work on these important skills as they cut shapes, glue, and put things together.

They teach colors, shapes, letter recognition, and formation.

These are skills students will use every day of their lives so it is important for them to get plenty of practice in new and exciting ways. Creating something new can help get students the practice they need without them even realizing they are learning.

Engagement.

I don’t know any younger students who don’t love crafts. Its a hands-on activity where they get to use their creativity to make something that they can show to their parents. It’s so fun! This is a great way to get students truly engaged in learning.

Listening and following directions.

Many kindergarten students are having their first ever experience in a school setting. Things like listening and following directions are not always concepts they understand yet. Doing these activities are a fun way to practice listening and following directions to create something exciting.

Crafts are a fun addition to any lesson. Working on letters? Try out some alphabet crafts! Reading a new story? Do a craft to go along with it! Learning about community helpers? Make some police hat crafts! The opportunities are endless.

Aside from the benefits listed above, these activities are a great way to add some variety to your lessons and prevent students from burning out while doing traditional worksheets.

Looking for more kindergarten tips? Check out my tips for teaching alphabet writing and identification.

Exciting Ways To Teach Community Helpers

August 13, 2021 teachersbrain education, kindergarten survival, Teacher's Pay Teachers, Teaching Tips

One of the important lessons we cover in kindergarten or first grade is on the topic of community helpers. We generally consider this to be police officers, firefighters, doctors, nurses, construction workers, mail carriers, etc. This is a great way to teach about the different kinds of people who help in our community. It helps students further understand how a community works and the important roles these people play.

There are tons of ways you can teach this lesson and make it super fun and engaging for your students!

Here are some of my favorite ways to teach about community helpers.

Bring in guest speakers. Reach out to some of the community helpers in your area and ask them to come in and speak to the class! This can be parents in that profession, or friends. The guest can share what they do, how they help the community, and what a typical day in their profession looks like.
Keep a journal. As students are learning about the different community helpers, have them keep a journal about the different people. They can draw pictures of them in uniform and get some writing practice by writing a couple of sentences about who they are and what they do.
Discuss the differences between long ago and today. How were the jobs different? Are they easier now? This is a great activity to encourage critical thinking.
List the different occupations. Use this list to get students thinking about what they want to be when they grow up. They can write it in their journal and you can go around the classroom sharing.
Read books about community helpers. Whenever possible, adding a story or two about your topic will enrich your lessons.
Watch videos about community helpers. There are lots of options available on Youtube. This video includes a fun song for students to sing or dance along to.

Looking for more activities to do during your community helpers lesson? Check out my Community Helpers resource!

This download is nine weeks of lessons designed to easily create a journal for students to use, interactive notebook pages, posters, and so much more! It covers three topics, Community Jobs, Tools and Equipment for Jobs, and Today vs. Long Ago.

This resource covers 9 full weeks of detailed lesson plans. You’ll get everything listed above and some extras including poems and songs, how to dial 911, cut and label activities for different community helpers, a volunteer art handprint gift, police officer hat/headband, police badges, and firefighter hats. Everything you need for this exciting social studies topic!

What are your favorite ways to teach about this topic? Let me know in the comments!

Looking for more social studies fun? Check out my year long social studies bundle for kindergarten and first grade!

Engaging Geography Lessons For Kindergarten And First Grade

July 30, 2021 teachersbrain kindergarten survival, Teaching Tips

When you think of teaching kindergarten and first grade students, you often think of letters, numbers, reading, math, etc. Those subjects are extremely important, but it is also beneficial to them to introduce the subject of geography!

Learning about the different countries around the world is so important. To these kiddos, they may not even realize that there is more out there besides what they can see. It’s so fun to teach them about all of the different countries, continents, and people around the world and watch their eyes light up in wonder.

Learning about geography is so vital to students because:

It teaches them about the diversity of locations and cultures in other countries around the world.
It helps them know where they are and what else is there- giving them a sense of location.
It helps them understand the impacts of changes in the environment on land and people.
It helps them understand and appreciate nature.
It helps them understand the world and their place in it.

For kindergarten and first graders, you want to start with the basics to introduce the topic. First, teach them about maps and globes, cardinal directions, landforms, bodies of water, etc. This will help them understand the essentials as you get more detailed in your lessons.

After they understand that, try introducing our country and the states. You can teach students where they are located. Make it extra engaging by teaching about the locations of famous landmarks or attractions. Next, get the students involved by asking them about their favorite vacation destination and then finding it on the map together. Geography can be so fun!

If you are ready to dive into geography with your students, I have THE go-to geography resource for you.

My Geography Resource includes 9 weeks of geography lessons and hands-on activities that are perfect for kindergarten or first grade students. It has everything you need including lesson plans covering positional words, landforms, bodies of water, cardinal directions, maps, globes, personal information, and seasonal weather changes. It has crafts, interactive notebook pages, posters, a “Me On The Map” flip book, and a write the room activity.