Week 23 of kindergarten is busy with digraphs, 2D shapes, past and present, Olympics, and Valentine’s Day! This week’s kindergarten activities are lots of hands-on lessons, lots of fun, and lots of effective learning.
This year is a little different for me because I get to be a stay-at-home dad, so I can spend more time with our daughters (NOTICE THAT CHANGE?!) Our daughter was born on December 15 and is doing well. Big sister has been amazing, and we’re so happy at how we’re all settling into our new family of 5 (Dolly, our doodle, is a great fur sister!). So, each week for Schedulin’ Sunday, I will post ideas and resources that I use in my classroom for that week in the school year. Each post will also contain links to previous years’ lesson plans!
Kindergarten Lesson Plans: Week 21
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2022-2023
2023-2024
2024-2025
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Kindergarten Lesson Plans: Phonics And Digraphs
This week, we are working on beginning and ending digraphs! For each digraph, we do a circle chart, word sort, decodable text, dictation, and a decoding activity! After a week of Blends Bootcamp, my students had 80% mastery of digraphs!
This week, we will do a favorite phonics activity: raining words! For this activity, I write decodable words on hearts. I put the hearts in an umbrella and turn it over so the hearts rain down onto the kids! They choose a heart and decode the word.
We also use our mnemonic letters and sound cards to spell and write words with digraphs. The embedded mnemonics help students learn spelling patterns faster and improve recall!
Lesson Plans For Kindergarten: Past And Present
This week, we continue with our required curriculum, which is all about the past and present. This week, we’re reading the story The Little House. We’re doing a notice and wonder and using text evidence to discuss how the little house changes.
Kindergarten Activities For Math: Shapes
This week, we are working with 2D shapes using Shapes Bootcamp!
This week is focused on shape recognition and describing shapes with attributes. Each day, we do a shape graphic organizer to identify the shape, its attributes, and real objects for that shape! This week, we also do our shape hunt and our shape mural.
This week we do a shape sort which I use for an assessment piece!
We also play a game called guess the shape. I choose a shape from a bag and describe the shape using attributes. Students identify the shape and color the shape on their paper!
Kindergarten Activities: Winter Olympics
The next two weeks, we will be learning about the Olympics. I love the Olympics and love bringing the excitement into the classroom. The Olympics are a great social studies tool for learning about sports, cultures, and geography! Plus, they’re just fun! For each sport, we read a book about the sport, we watch a video of the actual Winter Olympic sport, and create a graphic organizer!
Kindergarten Activities: Valentine’s Day
And of course, this week is Valentine’s Day (and Friday the 13th hehe). Why is Valentine’s Day the wildest holiday in Kindergarten?! It’s true. This one is always bigger than Halloween and Christmas. It’s unhinged. Fun. Exhausting. Here’s how we celebrate this week!
We read the book The Day It Rained Hearts and work on comprehension lessons such as story maps and sequencing!
We also sort and graph candy hearts!
And we do some fun STEM challenges by stacking the candy hearts and even stacking marshmallow hearts!
This week, we make our Bouquet of Phonics! This project is perfect for this week because it’s standards-based, engaging, and fun, and makes a cute display! And it can serve as an assessment. But let’s be real…it takes time so it keeps kids busy this week and keeps some of the chaos to a miniumum.
For a Valentine’s Day math lesson, we work on estimation and measurement. We discuss estimation and how we’re making a smart guess. Then we estimate how many hearts tall we might be. We measure ourselves to see how many hearts tall we are! We also make this a school wide activity by inviting the adults in the building to stop my and measure their height and add it to our chart!
Our Valentine’s Day art project for the week is our love poster using hands and feet!
Valentine’s Day Party Classroom Ideas
Listen. I am not a fan of Valentine’s Day, and the party has always been my nemesis. But finally, two years ago, I figured out something that worked. We celebrate with a “Nacho Average Valentine’s Day Party!” The kids spend the morning making their giant envelopes. That’s where we put our Valentine’s Cards. In the afternoon we have nachos (chips and cheese) and open our cards! Easy! Less sugar! FUN!
Kindergarten Lesson Plans: Black History Month
This week we continue our Black History Month celebration! Each day, we learn about a different person who made an impact on the world, and we discuss the lessons we learn from each person. While we celebrate Black History Month in February, this learning continues all year long.
Kindergarten Lesson Plans: Valentine Snack
Our Foodie Fun Friday snack this week is a Valentine’s snack! We use Oreos and yogurt to make a Love Parfait!
WEEK 23 RESOURCES
Here are some more resources that can make your planning and prep easier!
Kindergarten Lesson Plans And Activities: FREE RESOURCE
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