Holiday Activities and Freebies!
Digital learning isn’t just glorified screen time in the classroom! In fact, there are many reasons why digital learning activities should be part of every kindergartener’s learning experience. In this post, I’m going to share some helpful tips and resources to help you decide how you’d like to use digital activities in your own classroom.
Digital learning activities are designed to help students practice important academic skills on an electronic device like a computer, smart board, or iPad. Digital learning has always been an important addition to lesson plans over the past few decades, but it became essential during the years of distance learning during the pandemic. During this time, teachers relied heavily on digital activities to reinforce the skills they were teaching in the online classroom setting. In the years since, students have continued to practice a wide range of skills using engaging digital activities.
Even though distance learning is no longer the norm, digital activities can still be an excellent addition to your daily routine. Here are some of my favorite reasons to incorporate digital learning activities into kindergarten lesson plans.
When young children enter kindergarten, their main experiences with technology have typically been for fun and entertainment. They know how to navigate tablets quite easily to find their favorite videos and games! However, it can be challenging for them to understand that the same technology that they use for screen time at home is a tool for learning at school.
By incorporating digital learning activities into the classroom, students will begin to understand that tablet time isn’t simply free time like it might be at home. They might try to bounce around from app to app when they first use a tablet in the classroom. However, over time, they will learn how to follow directions and stay on task when using classroom technology. This will be an important skill for them to master as soon as possible, since they will be using these tools throughout their school experience.
Learning new skills like letter sounds, number identification, and counting takes a lot of practice for young students! It’s helpful to have a wide variety of activities available to help students get more repetition with these skills. When students are able to practice the same skill multiple times, the concept is more likely to stick! It’s even better when students can get this repetition from a wide variety of activities. This keeps them engaged and motivated to keep practicing because the repetitive practice won’t get stale and boring for them.
In the kindergarten classroom, it’s common for excitement and energy levels to increase exponentially when there are holidays around the corner. Digital activities provide a simple way to help students channel that excitement into worthwhile learning tasks. They will be able to play fun holiday-themed games while practicing math and literacy skills at the same time!
Digital activities truly are one of the easiest ways to bring some seasonal fun to your classroom! If you would like to try some holiday digital learning games for free, just fill out the form below and I’ll send some Halloween-themed digital activities directly to your inbox!
If you like to run centers with very small groups or partnerships, you already know that it requires a lot of different station options! You need places for all of these groupings to go during their rotations, which requires several activities and plenty of space.
Digital learning activities can be a low-prep station option for literacy and math centers! Students will know exactly what to do and will be able to get right to work. Plus, the fun activities will keep them on task until it’s time to rotate to the next station. They are also easy to reset for the next group and to put away when centers time is over.
The other reason why I love digital activities for centers is that it doesn’t always require a dedicated classroom area if space is an issue. Instead, students can take a tablet to their desks during their digital activity rotation.
Whether your students are using a computer, smart board, or tablet for digital learning activities, they will be able to practice their fine motor skills and coordination as they complete these activities. Students can improve their hand-eye coordination as they drag and drop items on the screen using a mouse, stylus, or their fingers. These skills will carry over into other activities as students continue to learn and grow.
If you would like to incorporate more digital activities into your lesson plans, you’ll definitely want to check out the resource that I’ve put together! I have assembled monthly digital learning activities into one money-saving bundle. With over 300 literacy and math activities, you’ll be able to keep your students engaged in skill practice all year long!
These activities are preloaded and ready to use in both Google Slides and Seesaw. They are also grouped by month, so you can quickly find seasonal activities to assign to your students. The activities follow the typical kindergarten scope and sequence of the school year. For example, the September digital learning activities are perfect for brand-new kindergarten students who are just getting started with letter identification, counting, and more.
If you’d like to take a closer look at all of the skills covered in this bundle of digital activities, you can find it in the A Spoonful of Learning shop or in my TPT store.
Be sure to save this post so you can come back to it later! Just add the pin below to your favorite kindergarten board on Pinterest. You’ll be able to quickly find this post when you’re looking for ways to bring more engagement to your daily lesson plans.
