Valentine Bingo and a Freebie

Kindergarten students love playing Bingo!  Is is such a fun game to play with students and is a great way to reinforce listening skills and following directions and loved by everyone!

I love playing it whole group as a reward for students, Fun Friday, for a holiday party, or just for a little break.  This is also a great vocabulary activity for ELL's for reinforce new themed words.

A fun thing to do is a phonics/ phonemic awareness twist on it and use it during literacy instruction. Instead of saying the word, you can give students clues and have them guess the word.

Possible clues includes

•It begins with (letter name or letter sound)

•It has ____ syllables

•It rhymes with ______

•It ends with _____

•Segment the word

•The word is a noun/verb (I have included several verbs in each set)

The possibilities are endless and it becomes so open ended for your students.  You can give clues or select a student to give clues for the pictures.

These games are low prep since all you have to do is print and go, or if you choose to laminate, you have have them available for years to come.  

What's Included? 

I have created this Valentine's Day Bingo set that is perfect for your classroom.  Each set has 30 unique cards in color as well as the calling cards, so they can be used whole group or small group.  

30 Bingo cards in black and white are also included with black and white calling cards, 

as well as a fun "create your own board" version

These are fun to print on Astrobright paper (affiliate link), gives students choice and cutting practice.  I like to print two sheet to a page for a bit of a smaller version when using these.

I would definitely have students use glue sticks to secure their pictures.  Students can select the pictures that they wish to have on their card bingo board and glue to create their individual bingo cards.

They will not use all pictures on their board but it is fun for them to create. I have included the Valentine's Day create your own version as a freebie at the end of this blog post.  

You can pair this Bingo game with some cute themed Valentine's Day Mini Erasers that you can find on Amazon (affiliate link) to use as the markers.  

You can find the Year Long Holidays and Seasons Bingo by clicking the link or the picture below.

This game is fun for students all year and you can easily swap it out.  Included are a variety of seasons and holiday and these work great for holiday parties or works great as an incentive for good behavior! 

You can find the also find the whole set of color and black and white Valentine's Day Bingo

or the create your own Valentine's Day Bingo Freebie

I hope that you and your students enjoy this fun classroom game!

Kindergarten Christmas Fine Motor Activities Bundle and a Freebie

Christmas Fine Motor Math Activities are a fun and hands on way to strength fine motor skills, build spatial and visual discrimination, while practicing counting. These are perfect for morning work tubs, math centers, a holiday party or fine motor tubs in a kindergarten classroom. These STEM activities are sure to be a hit in your classroom!

Included are a variety of fun themed activities that your students are sure to love.  I have included affiliate links to all of the manipulates that I use as well.

Pattern Blocks

One of my favorite fine motor activities is Christmas Pattern Block Math Activities

Your students will have a blast working with shapes to build different Christmas themed pictures and count how many of each shape is used.  Included in the packet are a variety of options for the 10 pictures including tracing only, small task cards that will challenge your students and encourage visual and spacial discrimination, as well as an open ended blank build your picture with shapes option. This provides an amazing option to differentiate and allow them to see the different shapes that you can use to build a shape.  

Each student may come out with a different way to create the picture and compare and a great way to bring in math questioning. 

I have included a free sample of one of the versions of the reindeer and the ornament for you to try in your classroom at the end of the post. 

If you don't get have Pattern Blocks yet, I have included my affiliate link for those as well.   

Snap Cubes

Another favorite fine motor activity that I love is Christmas Snap Cubes. This is another hand on activity to get students building, creating, and counting quantities up to 30.

Included are 10 different Christmas mats for students to build directly on as well as a version without counting, in case your students aren't there yet, as well as the small easy to store task cards.

You can find the snap cubes here, if you don't have them in your classroom yet. 

And you can find a free sample freebie on on version of a snap cube stocking and snap cube wreath at the end of this post.

Building Blocks

These are another hit and with all of the Lego's you may have laying around.  Students can use the Lego's to create their Christmas themed pictures.  

These are available in large to scale mats, you have even have the students build directly on the mats and count how many of each color or small easy to store task cards that are not to scale.  

They are also amazing fine motor practice! Included in the complete set are 10 different pictures.  You can find the picture of the Christmas tree and a Gingerbread house as a free sample in my fine motor sample pack.  

Geoboards

Geoboards are another great fine motor activity to use in your classroom.  They are such a hands on way for students to practice making and identifying shapes and great for your tactile learners.

These geoboard pictures include both a simple level and a more complex picture.  

You can find the geoboards that I use in my classroom here:

Christmas Fine Motor Bundle

You can find all of these activities with 10 different pictures in each set as well as other additional activities at a discounted price in my  Christmas Fine Motor Bundle here.  You can also click on any of the images to take you to the individual packets in my store.  

Or you can find the Free Christmas Fine Motor Sample here

Which Doesn't Belong For Kindergarten and a Which Doesn't Belong Shape Freebie

One of my favorite open ended games to play within my classroom is the game "Which Doesn't Belong."  This game not only encourages students with critical thinking skills, reasoning, and but is also great for vocabulary development and encourages students to explain their thinking.  

How to play?

To play the game, students are presented with four pictures. They must select the picture that they think doesn't belong and the most important part is so explain why.  It is opened ended so different students may have different answers for what they feel doesn't belong and there are no wrong answer as long as students can explain their reason as to why it doesn't belong.  

In my classroom, I have used cards that are perfect for kindergarten standards that focus on beginning sounds, rhyming, counting and shapes. 

Which Doesn't Belong Phonics 

These cards all have the same beginning sounds.  For example, for the letter l card, a student may say that the turtle does not belong, since it does not begin with l.  Another student may say that the log does not belong since it cannot walk.  For the beginning sound c card, a students may say that the hammer does not belong since it does not begin with the "c" sound.  Another student say hammer does not belong since it has 2 syllables, all of the other words only have 1 syllable.  I will often takes participate as well, especially when introducing this activity, and model my thinking for selecting a picture.  

All of these pictures rhyme so students may say that on the bat, cat, pig and hat card, the pig does not belong since that word does not rhyme.  Another student may say that the hat does not belong since all of the other pictures are animals or a student may see the color pink in all of the pictures except for the bat so another student may pick the bat.  This activity is very open ended and as long as a student can justify their reasoning they are correct! For the card with the ten, hen, pen and tent, one student may pick tent because it does not rhyme.  Another student may see yellow in all of the pictures except for the tent and may say that the tent does not belong.  I might also model the number of phonemes/ sounds I hear in the word.  If I segment, ten, pen, and hen, I would hear 3 sounds but if I segment the word tent, I hear 4 sounds so that would not belong.  You may be surprised at all of the different ideas that your students think of and it is a great way to encourage higher level thinking.  

Which Doesn't Belong Math 

Your students may also like playing What Doesn't Belong counting game which works great whole group but also is perfect for a math center counting activity.  

I have included cards with an X symbol over the number for students to select as the number that is not the same to mark their answer as the number that is different, or students can put an x mark over the number that does not belong. 

Your students may also enjoy Which Doesn't Belong shapes, which provides great practice identifying the names of both 2d and 3d shapes.  

This game is great to play during morning meeting, at the beginning of math or phonics instruction or whenever you have an extra few minutes in your day.  Students could also play independently in centers or it could be a teacher directed small group activity. 

You can find all of these activities in my Which Doesn't Belong Kindergarten Bundle 

Or you can find each game individually:

• Which Doesn't Belong Beginning Sounds, 
• Which Doesn't Belong Rhyming, 
• Which Doesn't Belong Counting 
• Which Doesn't Belong Shapes

I hope that you can your students enjoy this game in your classroom. 

Fall Write the Room A to Z and a Freebie

Fall Write the Room A to Z is a great way to get kindergarten students up and moving during your literacy block. It is always beneficial to our little ones to incorporate movement in the classroom and write the room never disappoints.  This fall themed kindergarten center activity will keep students engaged while reinforcing vocabulary as well as phonics skills.  

Pull out your clipboards for students to use while walking around the room and recording their responses on their response sheets. 

What is included in fall write the room? 

Included in this fall write the room activity, is a colorful and clear fall themed picture for each letter of the alphabet from A to Z.  It is a great way for students to learn some new fall vocabulary words, while also practicing beginning sounds.

I have also included a version with the beginning sound missing, making it a great way to differentiate by having students identify the missing beginning sound for the word.

For student accountability, there are multiple recording sheets for you to choose from.  To reinforce phonics skills, students can write the word in the corresponding box, filling in the sentence "____ is for ____"

There is also a simple a-z recording sheet, where students can walk around the room and find the picture with each beginning sounds.

And also a recording sheet version with only pictures and students can find the picture in the room and write the word in the correct box.

You can find a sample from this Fall Write the Room with 12 different pictures and a recording sheet.

Or grab this easy to incorporate and engaging phonics Fall Write the Room A to Z

Or the freebie here:

November Writing Prompts for Kindergarten and a Freebie

I love using themed monthly writing and these November Writing Prompts are a no prep, highly engaging resource to use in your kindergarten or first grade classroom. They cover a variety for different skill levels, concepts and writing genres and can be easily used during your writing period to make it a little more exciting or left for a sub.  

They begin with simple picture labeling or a "write the room" activity. This is the perfect way to introduce your students to both fall and Thanksgiving themed vocabulary.   

If you reuse these pictures with sight words, they can also be used as a hands on sentence building center activity.  As a teacher, you can extend this activity by having your students copy the sentence that they created and then illustrating it. 

As students progress with their writing or may need extra support in identifying what a complete sentence looks like, students can practice copying sentences that are already created.  Each sentence also contains a picture to make the sentence something they can easily read.  

Students can also create their own sentences with a sentence starter and a word bank for them to pick from and then illustrate a picture to match their sentence.  This helps students to build more confidence as writers.

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This is another great way to focus on important kindergarten early writing skills like leaving spaces and using end punctuation as well as illustrating their own picture to match.

In addition, included are Thanksgiving and fall themed picture picture writing prompts, both with pictures labeled and with no labels. 

Using the labeled version gives students confidence to write, instead of worrying about "how do I spell..." Or if students are working out stretching out their words, then the version without labels is perfect for your learners.  These are a fun way to get your students to use their imagination and write about a picture. 

Also included is themed opinion writing that is perfect for students to begin opinion writing and to help introduce students to another genre of writing.  

Lastly, sequence writing is included with pictures.  This is a great way to introduce students to using transition words in writing as well as writing more than one sentence about a topic.  

Overall, this resource includes more has over 60 pages of print and go writing activities that can be used for the whole month of November.  

You can find these November Writing Prompts  here:

Or can find a sample freebie of this resource here 

Halloween Mystery Puzzles and Center Activities

In a kindergarten classroom, we are always looking for fun and engaging ways to practice skills for mastery.  I am loving mystery puzzles in my classroom.  Mystery puzzles not are only enjoyable, but they are also self-correcting and no prep for teachers!

For these fun Halloween themed puzzles, students can write their answer directly on the paper under the question.  For this particular puzzle, students have to count and tell how many. (You can find this Halloween Counting puzzle as a freebie at the end of this post)

They then have to cut the puzzle pieces and glue the piece on the matching answer.

When students have correctly solved the problems, it then creates a fun Halloween themed picture, making the whole activity self-correcting.

The full packet includes 5 Halloween math puzzles with topics including:

  • counting to ten with objects

  • counting to 10 with tens frames 

  • missing numbers within 10

  • shapes

As well as accompanying math station activities focusing on these math skills.

This free Halloween Count the Room is a fun interactive way for students to practice counting to 20.  (You can find this as a freebie at the end of the post)

These counting clip cards which are great way to enhance fine motor skills while counting to 20. 

Also included are 5 Halloween phonemic awareness and phonics puzzles with topics including:

  • letter matching

  • beginning sounds 

  • rhyming

  • short a words

And accompanying phonics station activities focusing on these skills as well.

This beginning sounds write the room can be used for students to practice identifying beginning sounds as well as easily adapted for CVC words for students who are at that level.  

Alphabet puzzles are a great way for students to practice matching uppercase and lowercase letters as well as beginning sounds. 

And finally, clip cards focusing on rhyming. 

You can find this entire packet in my TPT store by clicking here: Halloween Mystery Puzzles

 As well as the free counting bats puzzle here: Halloween Counting Mystery Puzzle Freebie which also includes the Free Halloween Count the Room to 20 activity.