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Are you looking for some activity inspiration for a scarecrow unit study in your kindergarten classroom? In this post, I’m going to walk you through a two-week scarecrow unit for kindergarten. This unit helps students practice math, literacy, and even fine motor skills in with fun and engaging scarecrow activities!
During the fall, I am doing a number of the week with my students. For this example, our class is focusing on the number six during the scarecrow unit pictured in this post.
You can bring the scarecrow theme to math practice by counting crows! Play a little game with this crow fold down activity. Say a number out loud and then have the students show that many crows on the scarecrow’s arms by folding down the flaps. This is a great informal assessment!
After math practice, it’s time to start learning about scarecrows! You can read the story “The Falling Leaves and the Scarecrow” together as a class. Create an informational anchor chart to document what you learn about scarecrows from the story.
Then students can create their own informational charts about scarecrows.
If you’d like to add more information about scarecrows to your anchor chart, you can read another scarecrow picture book, like “The Little Scarecrow Boy.” Then it’s time to help your students create their own informational flip book with a cute scarecrow craft to go with it!
Practice showing six in a life-size ten frame! Have your students act like scarecrows as they stand in the ten frame, being very still and quiet. 🙂
After practicing ten frames together as a class, students can practice writing the number six and then place six scarecrows in the ten frame.
Meet Sammy Scarecrow! He is very helpful to have on display during your scarecrow unit, especially for counting practice!
You can have students practice counting out six crows on his arms. You can also put some crows on just one arm, then ask students how many they would need to add to the other arm to get six crows altogether.
Next, you can read the cute story “The Scarecrow’s Hat” to your class. Discuss the problems that each character had and what the solutions were to their problems. You can make an anchor chart to show the problems and solutions.
Use a life-size number line to help your students practice counting to six. They will love hopping all the way to number six!
After practicing counting on a number line together as a class, students can practice tracing the number six, counting on the number line and then gluing the scarecrows under each number.
You can continue your practice with problem and solution by reading “The Scarecrow’s Hat” again. Then have students complete their very own problem and solution and activity. Glue the characters in the order they appeared in the story, then place the solution to the problem underneath the correct character.
Next you can talk about the different parts of a scarecrow. You can do some interactive writing to label each part of a scarecrow.
After all of your practice with Sammy Scarecrow, your students will be able to determine how many more crows are needed to get six altogether. Have your students create their own mini readers! They can count how many crows are on the scarecrow, then add the correct number of scarecrows to show six altogether.
Add some scarecrow fun to your math practice by making scarecrows out of 2D shapes!
After creating their scarecrows, students can graph how many of each shape they used.
After reviewing the parts of a scarecrow as a class using the chart from yesterday, students can put together their own scarecrow mini book!
A new week brings a new number to practice! Your students will love being a group of mixed-up crows that need to be put back in the correct order. Your students will interact with each other and work together in order to solve this problem!
Once you’ve had a chance to practice ordering numbers to seven, your students can unscramble their own crows and attach them to a fence in order. They can also practice their writing skills by writing a sentence about how many crows are on the fence.
Now it’s time to read about a scarecrow with a pumpkin head! You can read “The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything” together as a class. This is such a fun story for the students! Before reading the very end of the story, have the students predict who is behind the door of the little old lady’s cottage.
Then you can have students share their predictions before sharing the rest of the story.
After finishing the story, you can label the different parts of the scarecrow from the story and the sounds that each part made.
With a new number to practice, it’s time to practice showing seven in a life-size ten frame! This time the students can be crows instead of scarecrows!
Then students can fill in their very own ten frames with seven crows. They can also practice tracing and writing the number seven.
After revisiting “The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything,” you can practice sequencing the story together as a class. Create a chart where you can sequence the order that the different parts appeared in the story.
Then you can practice sequencing words as you scramble up sentences about the different parts of the story. The students can each hold a word card for the sentence and then work together to put the sentence in the correct sequence.
Your students can create a math mini reader by gluing the correct number of crows on the page to show the number in the sentence.
Let your students spread their wings and fly up the number line as crows! They can practice counting to seven, the number of the week.
After practicing with the life-size number line, students can create their own number lines with crows! They can glue seven crows under the number line and then practice tracing and writing the number seven.
It’s time for Sammy Scarecrow to help your class practice identifying more and less! Place crows on each arm of the scarecrow and have your students tell you which arm has more crows on it and which arm has less. Also give them a chance to explain their reasoning!
Then students can count different groups of crows and write which group has more and which group has less.
After revisiting “The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Araid of Anything” your class can do an interactive sequencing activity to go along with the story. Students can sequence the order of the different parts of the scarecrow that followed the lady in the story. Then cover it with flaps showing which sound each part made.
Surprise your class with a life-size version of the scarecrow from “The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything”. (They will make their own versions soon!)
You can put Sammy the Scarecrow to work with more counting fun! To switch things up you can put a group of crows on one arm of the scarecrow and then invite students to put “more” or “less” crows on the other arm.
Once students have had plenty of practice with more and less, they can create a flip book! Each student can have place seven crows inside their flip book, some on one side and the rest on the other. They can count and write how many crows they have on each side. Then, they can write on the flap which side has more and which has less.
The next activity is always a hit with students! They love to compare the length of their names to the word “scarecrow”. The first step is spelling out the word scarecrow to see how many letters are in the word.
Then students can write the letters of their own names on cards and then line them up to compare.
Then students can practice graphing by creating a graph that compares the length of their name to the word “scarecrow”.
Your students can practice their fine motor skills as they create their own scarecrows from “The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything”!
I have to share this funny and cute story from my classroom when we made these crafts. My students told me that they didn’t want me to be alone when they were at specials. So they decided to give me new students while they were gone. This is what they came up with! Hilarious and ADORABLE!! Oh, the things they do that make me smile!
Would you like to try a scarecrow unit in your kindergarten classroom? You can find all of the activities shown above in my bundle of scarecrow activities for kindergarten. You can take a closer look at this product in the A Spoonful of Learning shop or on Teachers Pay Teachers.
If you’d like to find this post later, be sure to add this pin to your favorite board on Pinterest. You’ll be able to quickly find this scarecrow unit for kindergarten whenever you need it!
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!
