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Planning the first few weeks of the school year can feel pretty daunting! With so much to cover at the beginning of the school year, it might feel overwhelming to fit it all in. In this post, I’m going to share some of my favorite kindergarten activities for August. These activities will help your students practice important concepts and skills while also making special kindergarten memories.
As you’re creating your lesson plans for August, it’s always a good idea to think about what’s going on in the classroom during the month. You can think about the challenges you might have, prerequisite skills that need to be taught, and other skills that need to be reviewed.
During the month of August, students are usually in their very first days of school. They are still learning about the classroom routines and procedures. Letter and number identification are important concepts right off the bat as students are also building their phonemic awareness and number sense skills. On top of this, students are working on identifying and writing their names. All of this is going on when students are likely having some big feelings about being at school.
To sum it up, August is a very busy month in the kindergarten classroom! Here are some activity ideas that you can use to create engaging back-to-school lesson plans:
One of the first orders of business in August is to help students learn how to use school supplies effectively and safely. This doesn’t have to be a dull list of dos and don’ts!
This “One Dot Club” activity is a fun way for students to practice using an appropriate amount of glue on their work.
You could also review the different school tool procedures as students create this fun mini-reader.
Students can continue to practice using school tools as they make some special kindergarten memories at the beginning of the school year.
This first day of school hat for kindergarten is fun for students to color, cut, and assemble. They will wear their hats with pride on the way to after-school pickup! (The hats also make it helpful for staff to spot kindergarteners in the crowd and make sure they get where they need to be.)
Crafting is also an important part of the kindergarten curriculum! You can start enjoying the benefits of crafts early on in the school year. This pencil craft is a great memento for your new kindergarten students. The self-portraits are always a great way to capture this special snapshot in time.
As a final memento of the beginning of the school year, students can create a memory book from the first week of school.
There are a variety of pages that you can mix and match to best meet the needs of your students.
Building classroom community is also an important part of the first weeks of school. This starts with learning each others’ names!
This fun name graph is helpful for practicing names while also getting a little extra counting practice. Each student will write their name on a strip of paper. As a class, you can review each child’s name and then decide where it should go on the graph based on how many letters are in each student’s name.
You can also make a class book that includes everyone’s names! Each student will decorate a page with the first letter of their name and then write their name on the line. This makes a fun class book for students to browse during the first few weeks of the school year.
It can take a while for kindergarten students to remember names (it’s not uncommon to be called “Teacher” for most of the year). However, activities like this are a helpful start!
Young kindergarten students thrive on routine, so it’s a good idea to get your learning routines up and running as soon as possible.
These back-to-school center activities are the perfect introduction to literacy and math stations! Students are able to review a variety of early literacy and math concepts like letter identification, rhyming, number identification, counting, and more!
The activities have a fun school theme, which can help keep students engaged during the centers rotations.
Finally, students need plenty of practice identifying and writing their names.
Some students come to kindergarten having never seen their names in print before. Other students haven’t tried to write their names before.
This is why it’s helpful to have a variety of engaging activities for name practice. It gives your students the repetition they need while keeping things interesting!
Would you like to incorporate more name writing practice in your classroom during the first part of the school year? You’ll definitely want to grab my editable name practice resources!
My bundle of ten printable activities will keep your students engaged in name practice! You can create a full set of name activities for each of your students with just a few clicks. All you need to do is type in the names of your students in the space provided, and then the class set of individual name practice worksheets will be generated automatically. If you’d like to take a closer look at everything included in this resource, you can find it in the A Spoonful of Learning shop or on TPT.
I also have an editable name practice booklet that includes several engaging activities! Students can practice identifying, spelling, and writing their names. Just like the name practice worksheets, all you need to do is type in your class list and the books will be generated automatically! Just click below to find this resource in the A Spoonful of Learning shop or on TPT.
Be sure to save this post if you’d like to come back to it later. Just add the pin below to your favorite teaching board on Pinterest. You’ll be able to quickly find these engaging activities when you’re working on your August lesson plans.
These alphabet books will have students dive deep into learning about each letter of the alphabet while eager to see what activity they get to complete next!
