Kindergarten Behavior Expectations: Good and Bad Choices Activities + Free Sort

The first few weeks of kindergarten are so crucial for teaching behavior expectations and setting the stage for a positive classroom all year long. Young learners really do thrive when they know exactly what's expected of them and that means we need to explicitly teach, model, and reinforce those behaviors from day one. One of my favorite ways to do this is through good and bad choices activities, behavior sorts, and think sheets, and I want to share exactly how I use them!

Teaching Behavior Expectations in the First Weeks of School

I spend a lot of time on classroom expectations at the start of the year. What works best for my kindergartners is making it hands-on and visual. Instead of just telling them the rules, I am  actually letting them sort, discuss, and practice what good choices look and feel like.

Here's what I do:

We start with a whole-group behavior sort where students decide together whether different actions are good or bad choices. I love this because it gets kids talking and thinking, and it gives me a chance to hear their reasoning. You might be surprised what they come up with! Then students practice independently with their own sort.

I also use this as a great mid-year refresher. When January rolls around and students need a little reminder of expectations, pulling these back out is so much more engaging than just reviewing the rules again.

Good and Bad Choices Activities

The behavior sort is simple but so effective. Students identify whether an action is a good or bad choice, sort cards independently, illustrate or write about positive behavior, and color an emergent reader that reinforces classroom expectations.

(Note: this student sort is included as a freebie at the end of the post)

The emergent reader is one of my favorite parts — students get their own little book to color, and it doubles as a take-home reminder of classroom expectations for families too!

Encouraging Positive Behavior with Visual Supports

To help keep students focused and motivated throughout the year, I use visual behavior posters in my classroom. I love choosing one expectation to focus on each week and displaying it as a visual reminder.

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 You can also turn it into a little game — I've included small certificates that you can give out when you catch students showing that expectation. Kids go absolutely crazy for those little certificates!

Holding Students Accountable: Visual Think Sheets

Teaching expectations is just the first step but helping students reflect on their choices is what really helps them internalize positive behavior. That's why I use visual think sheets that work beautifully for kindergarten, Pre-K, and special education students.

Students simply color what they did and what better choice they could make next time. It's accessible for early learners, perfect for parent communication, and great for documentation if you ever need it.  This also works well for having discussions with students about their behavior.  

Cool Down Strategies for Self-Regulation

Some students need extra support managing their emotions, and I love having cool-down strategy visuals posted in the classroom so kids have something to reference when they're feeling overwhelmed. Things like deep breathing, drawing, or moving to a quiet space give students healthy tools to self-regulate before things escalate.

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Grab These Behavior Management Resources!

You can find all of these activities in my  Kindergarten Think Sheet and SEL  in my TpT store.

And don't forget to grab the free Good and Bad Choices Student Sort — it's a perfect way to try this out with your class right away!  

I hope these activities help you build the kind of classroom community where every student knows what's expected and feels set up for success. That's really what the first weeks of school are all about! 😊

Spring Geoboard

As the weather gets nicer outside and summer approaches, as teachers we have to keep our students engaged and excited about their learning. We all know that our students love hands on-activities and these geoboard activities are perfect for a math or literacy center to provide your students with meaningful and exciting activities.  

If you don't have geoboards for your classroom yet, you can find the set that I used here:
Geoboards (affiliate link)

These geoboard activities are simple, yet challenge your students by allowing them to construct pictures out of shapes and identify the shapes they find.  They are perfect for tactile learners and will challenge students to extend their thinking.  

We have been having so much fun working with spring geoboard pictures (these are all free at the end of the post) .  Your students will love creating these spring themed pictures on geoboards.

Included are two different levels of pictures, an easier and a more difficult, a great way to differentiate for students. 

Once they create the picture, on their recording sheet they can then label the picture (a great way to tie in literacy) and identify the shapes they found in their picture.  This is a great way to extend their thinking about shapes.    

Included are 10 different pictures for students to create, each with 2 different levels of difficulty.

If your students enjoy these, I also have geoboard sets available for all holidays and all seasons as a bundle that you can grab at discount price.  

Your students will love the hands on aspect of them and great to rotate themes throughout the year as a math or literacy center.Each set contains both small cards and large cards with 10 different pictures and 2 different levels for each picture.  

You can grab the spring pictures as a freebie here.  

I hope that you and your students enjoy this freebie and you have a great end of your school year!

Sight Word Pattern Blocks

My students love pattern blocks but I never feel that I get enough use of them.  They are perfect for math but I felt we should be getting more use out of them in our classroom since my students love them so much.  They provide hands on learning  and students love building and exploring using pattern blocks.  To build on my students desire for more hands on learning activities in the classroom we recently began working on building words using our pattern blocks during literacy centers.  

They are perfect for tactile learners since students are actually building the words while using  higher level critical thinking skills by creating each of the words.  Since the words end up being so large, they are not to scale and students need plenty of space to complete them but your students will be engaged and excited to complete this activity.  They work great as an extension activity, especially at the end of the year when students may be able to read all sight words but may need more practice spelling them.  

You can find the color words as a freebie in TPT store (there is a link at the end of the post).

I also have 100 + different sight words available that are a great way to reinforce kindergarten sight words.

Also provided is a recording sheet that hold students accountable to their work and also ties in math and literacy in this activity.  .  

You can find the free color word pattern blocks here:

I hope that you and your students enjoy this activity and have fun learning using pattern blocks! 

Easter Counting Practice

Counting practice is pre-k and kindergarten is a skill that repeated practice is always helpful and never gets old!

For a seasonal twist, we are using these fun Easter egg counting cards where students count the number of eggs and clip that numbers. (These cards are a freebie at the end of the post!)

Your students will love this hands on interactive counting practice and included is counting cards for numbers 1-20.

These work perfectly as a math centers or small group activity.  We also use them to play quiz quiz trade, where each student is given a card, students mix around the room to find a partner, each student identify how many on their partner's card, the student with the card checks their answer and they then trade cards to find a new partner.  

Also included in the download are the same counting card with the numbers around the edges in order.  This allows for differentiation of the activity since some students will be able to identify the numbers with automaticity while some students may need to count to identify the number which can be done in order around the card.

You can find a full year worth of these seasonal counting cards here.  They work great as a center activity since students always can use practice counting, the students know what is expected with that activity and they are fun and hands on for students.  

They are super each prep, just print, laminate (affiliate link), and they become a great math center for your students.  

These Easter cards can be found as a freebie here:

The Little Red Hen and The Little Red Hen (Makes a Pizza) Compare and Contrast Freebie

The Little Red Hen has always been one of my favorite stories to teach students hard work and helping others and is a fun unit for the spring when you can plant with your students! I love sharing this story with my students and then move on to do a compare and contract activity with the story. 

The Little Red Hen

I love reading the story The Little Red Hen in the spring with my students.  I work on this story for a full week with my students.  

Students enjoyed reading and coloring their own little emergent reader.  

We did sequencing and retelling activities and really became familiar with the story.

Students created their own little flip book with vocabulary from the story and labeled a picture which is a great phonics activity where they can listen for beginning and ending sounds.  

We did a little writing activity where students drew themselves and added their own name to the sentence frame, "I will help the Little Red Hen, said ____."  This is a fun sheet to save to create a class book.  They also practice reading and copying sentences.  

As well as some Little Red Hen themed math/ number sentence activities.  

And finally some fun extras, such as a story elements graphic organizers, a word search, rhyming and a sort of events from the story and things that do not belong. 

Compared and Contrast with the Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza

Once we were very familiar of the story of the Little Red Hen, we moved on to The Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza.  I recently discovered the story and absolutely love it.  In this adorable version of the story, the Little Red Hen wants to make a pizza and needs items to make her pizza.  

The Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza (affiliate link)

I was so happy to share this version of the Little Red Hen with my students and thought it was a great story to practice compare and contrasting.  This has always been a difficult skill for my students and since it is a higher level skill, I have been trying to focus on developing comparing and contrasting with my students.  

I then moved on to introducing the story The Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza and comparing and contrasting these stories.  As a group we talked about how these stories are the same and different.  We discussed the beginning, endings, characters and other story elements.  As a follow up activity, I had students complete their own Venn Diagram comparing and contrasting these two stories.  (This activity is a freebie at the end of the blog post)

For this activity you can use preselected pictures like above or if your students are more capable, they can write or draw how these stories are similar and different in their own Venn Diagram or use the preselected pictures.  

You can grab The Little Red Hen sequencing activity, retelling and all of the other The Little Red Hen activities from my easy prep sub plans in my TPT store or by clicking on the link. 

The compare and contrast activity is a freebie in my TPT store that you can grab here:

 

Student Goal Setting in an Elementary Classroom

Student goal setting is such a great way to encourage your students and for students to take ownership of their learning.  While student goal setting in a kindergarten or first grade classroom can be a little more difficult, your students will get so excited and involved in their learning if done. I have created these free and simple goal setting sheets that are simple and student friendly for an elementary classroom.  

Students can write their own reading and math goals on these simple sheets.  I have included a "by" section so they can begin learning that it takes practice to reach these goals.

This can help students to pick a grade level or attainable goal for themselves and then a means to achieve their goal.  (These are all free at the end of the post)

I have also included a version without the "by" that is one page for reading and math.

In your classroom, you can have students pick goals by having discussions of what they will be learning in kindergarten.  Maybe a students goal is to count to 100, learn all of their letter sounds or learn 60 sight words.  
I like to use my simple kindergarten goal sheet to help students write these goals.  These are goal setting sheets that we use in my classroom all year so goals are communicate with both students and parents.  

They are student friendly and the images help students see what is expected of them in kindergarten.  
If you would like a graphic version of all standards with all pictures to use with students or parents, I also have those available.

These forms and handout are a great resource for parents teacher conferences. You can talk with students and parents where students are at and next steps.  
These student I can statements are available for grade K-4 in my TPT store or by clicking on the pictures below. 

       

     

 And be sure to grab the goal setting freebie here!