This blog post is full of ideas for the First Week of Kindergarten. Includes book suggestions, activities, and links to accompanying ideas.

Setting up a kindergarten classroom at the beginning of the year can be an exciting, yet overwhelming. Whether you are a student teacher, or this is your last year teaching elementary school, I'm here to share

All of these organizational printables shown on this blog post are FREE! This page contains affiliate links. Read Full Disclosure

Wild Thing Book Activities! This unit is fantastic for Maurice Sendak's book Where the Wild Things Are. Writing worksheet and craft included. Perfect for kindergarten or first grade!

1st Week of Kindergarten Plans & Ideas including a freebie. Teaching little learners with purpose and fun.

A ton of free printable worksheets for kindergarten you'll love to use in your class or at home. Fun kindergarten worksheets to download!

Kids will have fun while learning where do I Live with this printable activity perfect for preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten students.

Are you looking for super fun measurement worksheets and activities for kindergarten?? You found them!! Your students will LOVE these hands-on learning activities and fun, extra practice worksheets that teach a variety of kindergarten measurement concepts.

I posted about these songs about a year ago on my Instagram feed and so many of you asked if I would be putting these in my TPT shop to sell. At the time, we had only written three, and I just didn't feel like that was enough to make a whole resource with. Since then, I have been working on writing new transition songs that are sung to some of our kids' favorite tunes! Singing CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT SONGS AND CHANTS during transitions makes moving from one thing or place to another almost seamless. Songs and chants keep students engaged, focused, and excited to learn, which in turn will save valuable instruction time. It also helps eliminate unwanted behaviors by giving your students the structure, consistency, and support they need. Most of the songs included are parodies of popular songs most kids will know. The words have been changed to help students transition in a positive manner. I printed the songs on cardstock and laminated them. I used a binder ring to attach the set together to hang on my board for easy access. There are also three different color options included. :) Let's go through a little breakdown of when and why we sing each of these songs: The Carpet: We sing this when it's time to transition to the carpet. I start they song, they join in. They have to be on the carpet in their assigned spots by the end of the song. Works like a charm every single time! I even added in some little hand motions that end the song with their hands in their laps. All I Do Is Freeze: We mostly use this when students are working in groups or with a partner. Sometimes, I need them to stop what they are doing, so that I can give them a direction or clear something up. It's a great way to get their attention! Clean Up Chant: This one is pretty self-explanatory. I do not instruct them when it's time to clean up; I just start the chant. You may want to add a timer to it afterwards if you need them cleaned up in a certain amount of time. Let's Line Up: Will kids ever get over Frozen? Probably not. If yours are still obsessed, too, they will love this line up chant. It gets them lined up quickly and without distractions, which saves so much time! Back to My Seat: We sing this when we transition from the carpet to their seats. We usually sing it a couple of times to give them plenty of time to make it to their seats. It's a really quick song! Partner Up: This song probably takes the most practice. Anytime you need students to get with their partner, you can sing this song. It also reminds them what to do when they are with their partner. Learning Math is Awesome: Sing this song to signal that it's time to begin math. I can guarantee it will get stuck in your head afterwards. Sorry. We Can't Stop Reading: This song can be used to kick off your reading block each day. It gets them excited about books and where those stories will take them! Quiet Time: I may or may not have sung this one the most. It works so well! I sing it in a calm, quiet voice, in which students will mirror. It immediately calms the room. Sing it a couple of times if needed! See!: I had to incorporate some Taylor Swift in these songs. We want students to be proud to share their thinking and comfortable talking with a partner. We also want their partners to be respectful and value what they are saying. This song is great to sing before students share with a partner or to close out a lesson by sharing what they learned or took away from the lesson. I just added some NEW songs!!! Like It Was: This is another clean up song. You could sing this one at the end of centers. It's really good about reminding students to put everything back in its place. Good For You: This is a song that you can sing as a class to celebrate someone! Maybe someone had a really great idea or accomplished something amazing, you can sing this to pump them up! We're Amazing: I am all about incorporating mindfulness into our day, so I knew I needed to create a song that encompassed that. This is another one that is going to take some practice to get down, but you can always display it as you sing. Some of the songs might take lots of practice to get down! But don't give up! After you sing it over and over, you will eventually get it. You will sing them to the tune of the chorus from the songs. I have added links to the actual songs in the PDFs. You just click the blue arrow at the bottom of the page. Always check these first NOT in the presence of students. I have gone through them to make sure they are safe, but you never know when things can change. A few of these parodies are straight from my students. I asked them what songs they wanted me to write transition songs for, and these are what we came up with. This group in particular had difficulty this year with transitions because they were all best of friends and LOVED to talk, which in turn got them distracted. I LOVED that about them, but we were losing valuable time trying to get refocused. Once I introduced a song or chant for them to do while transitioning, the difference was crazy! It keeps your learning environment positive, too, which is super important. You can check out the resource by clicking HERE or on any of the images in the post. Let me know how your students do with these songs or if you need another song added! I love your feedback! Happy transitioning!

FREE printable Symmetry drawing activity for preschool and kindergarten kids. A fun art and math activity in one! Kids will complete the symmetrical pictures by drawing the other half.

It is the first week of kindergarten! What do I teach? I get this question all the time! I am so excited to put together this page together for you. I’m sharing our favorite first week of kindergarten read aloud stories and the free coordinating printables I made to go with them. Plus I will s

Is your child ready for Kindergarten? This post will help you decide plus free worksheets focused on kindergarten readiness skills like...

Print this free kindergarten assessment pack to use as end of the year testing for your kindergarten students. This is a great way to see where your students are at, and find any areas for development.

Pre-K and TK Back to School Worksheets. Name practice, fine motor skills, color identification, pre-k math skills and pre-k alphabet practice.

Fine motor activities are the perfect way to engage your students with interactive and educational activities. As a teacher we are always looking for fun and hands on ways to enhance your kindergarten students' fine motor skills and it's a bonus when you can also incorporate math. Spring Fine Motor Activities Pattern Block Mats Spring Pattern Blocks are an excellent tool for developing fine motor skills and teaching math concepts such as shapes, symmetry, and fractions. In this activity, children can use pattern blocks to create pictures and included are different ability levels. Students can build the pictures, identify the shapes and count how many of each shape is used in the picture. A great way to incorporate math and fine motor activities. Also included are small easy to store task cards that work well for morning work or early finishers. And also a design your own version, which can challenge your students and beneficial to your visual spacial leaners. I love these more opened ended tasks which are so great for differentiation. Students are able to come up with so many different ways to make the same picture. Snap Cube Activities Spring Snap Cube Activities are another hands on and engaging resource for teaching math concepts and developing fine motor skills in your classroom. In this activity, children can create different pictures using snap cubes, sort by color and count how many of each color. This does require counting up to 20 and is a great way to reinforce that kindergarten standard. You will also fine simple to build mats that are to scale for students and a great fine motor activity and does not involve counting. As well as small task cards and can really challenge students and are great to help develop visual spacial awareness. These are small and easy to store and a great activity to keep for morning bins or early finishers. Geoboard Activities Spring Geoboards are also a great tool for developing fine motor skills and teaching math concepts such as symmetry, shapes, and patterns. In this activity, children can use geoboards to create different spring shapes like butterflies, flowers, and and birdhouses. As an extension activity, students to practice identifying shapes they may see in a picture and record on the mats. Each picture includes both and simple and more difficult version with 10 different pictures included. The small geoboard task cards are included as a freebie at the end of this blog post. Spring Building Brick Activities Spring Building Bricks are another fun and engaging fine motor activities to use in your classroom. Your students will love using Legos or other building bricks to create spring themed pictures such as rainbows, ladybugs, butterflies and bird houses. Included are 10 different spring themed pictures with both small easy to store task cards as well as large to scale cards where students can simply build on the mat You can all of these activities in Spring Fine Motor Bundle which includes a variety of templates for Snap Cubes, Pattern Blocks, Building Bricks, Geoboard Boards, and Pom Poms at a 40% discount. Each set contains 10 different spring themed picture for your students to create. You can fine the Free Spring Geoboard Task Cards here

Recently, I have seen some debates on using centers and the Science of Reading. If you have been a teacher for a long time, centers were a HUGE part of Balanced Literacy. Recently, teachers have shifted away from balanced of literacy to research based Science of Reading. You can read my Science of Reading Post ... Read More about Centers and the Science of Reading

Free printable shapes worksheets for teaching kids the basic shapes. Lots of fun activities to download for FREE!

FREE cutting, coloring and tracing pack for preschool and kindergarten to practice scissor skills and fine motor skills. Includes 6 no-prep worksheets for a set of easy and fun activities.

This year for preschool we are part of a co-op preschool group. I put together name recognition activities for all the kids in the preschool. Here are the activities. Name sticks To make this activity. I got paint stick stirrers and used Mod Podge to glue the letters of the child's name on to the stick. Then used mounting tape to stick the letters onto the clothespins. Your child matches up the letters to spell their name. Name Block Matching This can be made in any word document or you could make make it easily be hand. Name Puzzles Here are free puzzles patterns for 4, 5, 6, and 7 letters names. You can either hand write your child's name or open in a word document to add your child's name Just right click on the each image, save and print. I recommend printing on cardstock paper so it is more durable 4 letter name 5 letter name 6 letter name 7 letter name Name Tracing You can download free front from this website to make these tracing cards in a word document. The font is called ABC Print Dotted. This is laminated and so it can be used over and over again. Name Path For this activity, you can use any word document and create a table. Then can choose what letters you want to use and what path to create to spell your child's name. This is also laminated so it is reusable. Progressive Name Tracing This idea is also part of the Preschool learning binder I put together. I download free front from this website to make this in a word documents. The names of the fonts are ABC Print Arrow, ABC Print Arrow Dotted, and ABC Print Dotted. All of these activities are stored in a laminated 9 x 12 folder. I used an X-acto knife to cut a slip in the top. I like this folder idea because it keeps things together and can be passed around easily to each home when it it our turn to teach preschool.

Hey all! I hope that you are enjoying your last few days of summer. I've had some questions lately from both new and veteran teachers alike about year-long pacing of curriculum. How can you make sure

Grab your FREE hair salon scissor skills printable to use with your preschool and kindergarten students! Use at home and at school!

Back to School is right around the corner for us and I am SUPER excited to kick of this school year with some fun, hands-on and engaging resources for The

Download sample resources from our Kindergarten Mega Math Bundle to make hands on instruction an integral part of your math classroom.

SEPTEMBER NO PREP MATH AND LITERACY ACTIVITIES

Looking for fun and educational resources to help your child learn and practice beginning sounds? Look no further! We are delighted to offer...

FREE personalized name tracing sheet for preschool and kindergarten. Can be edited to include any child's name. Great for kids learning to write their name, as well as kids who need more handwriting practice.

ALL ABOUT ME & MY COMMUNITY I absolutely love teaching All About Me and My Community ! In this unit we cover four themes that are so much fun: All About Me, All About My Family, All About Community Helpers and When I Grow Up. You all know that I love thematic teaching units , and this

Getting Ready For Kindergarten! Is your child starting kindergarten soon? If so, you are going to love all the free printables and kindergarten prep checklists and tips on this page....

Your students can use this worksheet to practice shape recognition and sorting into categories. Students will look for shapes in illustrations of real-world objects, cut them out, sort them into the correct category, then glue them down.

Need some ideas for transportation centers and activities? I'm here to help! I'm sharing my favorite, most engaging transportation-themed activities with you. I also created Road Number Mats FREEBIE for you, too! AND a train name craftivity FREEBIE! Go grab your lesson plan book and get ready to be inspired!

Handing little learners a pair of scissors for the first time in a classroom can make teachers a little uneasy. Spend time focusing on how to cut with scissors, as well as, seeing what tool learners are ready to use is important. What Scissors to Use? There are many levels of development a child needs

Get free printables for kids in preschool and kindergarten! Find hundreds of free printable activities for literacy, math, science and more!

Send students home from their first day of school with a special name crown. Encourage family communication and begin building a classroom community as children start to learn each other's names.

Super fun project for your Pre-k, Kindergarteners, and even 1st Graders. Your students will have so much fun mixing colors, whether they are just learning about color, or revisiting color mixing. This project is very versatile and can be created using a variety of mediums such as watercolor paint, t...

Hi friends!! I’m super excited to be linking up with Doodle Bugs for Five for Friday. I haven’t done one in a long time!! But I’m not feeling too well […]

Fine Motor Activities for kindergarten: Create a rainbow fish and rainbow name to develop fine motor skills with young students

This quick and EASY frankenworms experiment demonstrates baking soda and vinegar chemical reaction with fun halloween activities for October.

Looking for easy Ocean Crafts? This printable Easy Octopus Craft is perfect! Preschoolers can practice their scissor skills with this fun idea

Oh, the first day of school! It's such a fun, but chaotic day. Most of my first days are a little bit of a blur. This is why I have to write very detailed lesson plans or I'll forget everything from that day. I always try to have the same activities for that first day

Ready to start Kindergarten with your child? I know homeschooling can sometimes