In Florida, summer is officially over, and the children have returned to school. The beginning of the school year is an exciting time for everyone. The kids have their new clothes, backpacks, and school supplies. The teachers decorated the classrooms, prepared the lessons, and met with their students. The parents bought school snacks, signed up to volunteer, and started new school routines at home.
As a retired bilingual K-2 teacher, I now enjoy the beginning of school vicariously through my three grandsons in kindergarten, middle, and high school. After years of teaching K-2, I accumulated oodles of teaching materials. I donated most of it, but I kept some to work with my grandson in kindergarten. To be honest, teachers never truly part with all their teaching materials.
I understand parents are busy and need help getting the children organized for school. That’s why I put together these Back to School learning activities for your convenience. The learning activity ideas presented here are free, but some have links to TPT (Teachers Pay Teachers). TPT charges a small fee to download the worksheets to your computer (Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with TPT). These learning activities will increase your child’s reading and math skills to ensure a successful school year.
1. Sight Word Notebook (Use with the Sight Word Choice Menu)
Set up a Sight Word Notebook (composition book) for your child to do their daily sight word practice work. Let your child select a choice for the day, such as rainbow words, write words 3x each, picture words, magazine words, stamp words, etc. Follow the sight word list the teacher gives your child. Here’s a UFLI Heart Word/Sight Word List TPT link, if you need it. Here’s a simple Sight Word Choice Menu, but use whatever the teacher assigns for homework/extra practice (see pictures to set up the sight word notebook).
2. Nightly Reading Log
Your child is encouraged to read a book every night and log it. An easy way to do this is to make it a bedtime routine. If your child is still learning to read words, you may read the book to your child, and log it. Some teachers send books home to read, but you can use the books from home or public library. Here’s a Free Daily Reading Log TPT link, if you need it.
3. Math Magician Notebook
Set up a Math Magician Notebook (composition book) for your child to do their daily number practice. In Kindergarten, they will start with counting the number of days in school. For example, the first day of school is day 1 and they count up to 196 days in school. In addition, to working on the daily number you can incorporate basic addition and subtraction math sentences when they are ready (see pictures to set up the math notebook). Here’s a Free Number Line TPT link, if you need it.
4. Extra Learning Activities
-Shaving cream sight word practice (Dollar Tree has shaving cream for $1.25) Your child will need a table to spread the shaving cream and write the words with their finger. Supervision is required for this activity as only a small amount of shaving cream is needed and they will need help with the clean up.
-Sight word Playdoh mats for hands practice. You will need to buy some Playdoh and the activity on TPT. The word mats can be laminated or inserted into plastic sheet protectors. I highly recommend this activity as the children love it!
-Boggle game. You will need to buy this activity on TPT. This game is perfect to practice reading and writing cvc words like cat, mat, sat, etc. I highly recommend this activity also as it’s another favorite with kids. If you have the actual Boggle game than use that instead of the TPT activity.
Welcome Back to School!
