Morning work is a great way to start the day in kindergarten. It’s also a great way to help your students become more successful readers.
When I was in the classroom, the first thing we do each day is morning work. I used morning work as a way for students to practice skills and concepts from the previous weeks, so it’s important that what we choose for morning work is meaningful and relevant to their learning.
What is morning work in kindergarten?
Essentially, this is work that students complete when they first arrive at the classroom in the morning. It gives them a chance to get focused and thinking about the subjects they are working on. It’s an excellent way to establish consistency and a strong routine for the day.
Here are some ways that morning work benefits kindergarteners:
Reading Skills
Morning work helps students practice their reading skills, and when they read each day, they become better readers.
Fine Motor Skills
Students at this age are still developing those important fine motor skills. When they do their morning work, they get practice with their grip, writing their name and other letters, number formation, etc.
Letter identification
Repeated practice with letters is the best way to learn them! Each day, morning work includes letter practice to help students perfect their letter recognition skills.
Counting
Morning work that enables students to work on their counting is very beneficial. The more practice they get with counting, the better their number identification and math skills will be.
Color identification
Morning work can include activities that encourage students to find certain colors and identify them.
Writing
This is a completely new skill for students this age and it takes a lot of practice. Morning work allows them to get some writing practice as they begin their day.
Finding the right worksheets for morning work is essential. I created these morning work packets for kindergarten students to make it easy and fun to implement morning work in your classroom. These worksheets cover math and reading topics.
One of the best features is that students can work through these activities at their own pace. This huge resource includes 40 weeks of morning work activities so you never have to scramble for morning activities again.
It covers:
- Handwriting Uppercase and Lowercase Letters
- Sight Word Practice
- Beginning Letter Sounds
- Months of the Year
- Days of the Week
- Handwriting Sentences
- Word Families
- Silent /e/
- Digraphs
- Number Sense
- Ten Frames
- Counting
- Number Lines
- Writing Numbers
- Counting On
- Shapes
- More and Less Than
- 3D Shapes
- Graphs
- Place Value
- Aug. and Sept. (Handwriting, Letters, Numbers, Colors, Sight Words, Counting)
- Oct. and Nov. (Handwriting, Letters, Numbers, Ten Frame, Counting, What Comes Next)
- Dec. Jan. (Word Families, Vowels, Counting, Greater than, Less Than, Handwriting)
- Feb. and March (capital letters, lowercase letters, word families, shapes, counting on, less than)
- April and May (digraphs, tens and ones, 3D shapes, graphs, and silent /e/)
Each page has an extended activity for students to do on the back of the page for early finishers. It is designed so that you can model once to the whole group, and then students should be working independently for each set.
There are only mild changes in this packet each month to make it easy for students to follow the pattern each morning. I provide different fonts, so students get used to seeing letters that look different.
The number and the number word are used so students get familiar with number word recognition. I tell students to look at their crayons to find the color word to help them figure out the color on their own to create independence.
For more morning work fun, check out my post here!
What are your favorite morning work activities for kindergarten? Let me know in the comments!