In today’s tech-savvy world, integrating digital tools into kindergarten education is not just an option, but a necessity. However, it’s crucial to strike a balance, ensuring that technology enhances, rather than replaces, hands-on learning. This collection of 50 Kindergarten Learning Activities blends digital engagement with essential developmental milestones, perfect for young, curious minds. These activities are designed to meet learning standards and goals while keeping our youngest learners excited and actively participating.
1. Embark on a Shape Expedition
Start with an engaging read-aloud like Dr. Seuss’s “The Shape of Me and Other Stuff.” This book is a fantastic springboard to introduce the concept of shapes in everyday life. Following the story, encourage your kindergarteners to become shape explorers! Whether they are at school or at home, task them with identifying and locating various shapes such as rectangles, triangles, circles, and even 3D shapes like cylinders and spheres within their surroundings.
Next, amplify this activity by integrating digital tools. Equip students with tablets or cameras to capture images of the shapes they discover. To further solidify their understanding, have them use drawing or annotation apps to label the shapes in their photos or add voice recordings describing each shape they found. This transforms a simple shape hunt into an interactive and digitally enriched learning experience.
Explore the “Seeing Shapes” lesson plan for deeper learning experiences and literature connections.
2. Craft a Digital Greeting Card
Personalized greetings are a wonderful way for young learners to express creativity and connect with others. In this activity, students will design and send digital greetings, perfect for holidays, birthdays, or just because! Begin by having students create original artwork using digital painting or drawing tools. They can draw pictures, add digital stickers, or even import photos to personalize their creations.
To add a heartfelt touch, guide them to record their voices to accompany their artwork. They can say “Happy Birthday,” “Thank You,” or any message they wish to convey. Once their multimedia message is complete, teach them how to share it! They can easily copy a URL link to their greeting or export it as a file to send via email or text message, spreading joy and practicing digital communication skills simultaneously.
3. Unleash Creativity with Digital Scratch Art
Remember the classic scratch art that reveals vibrant colors beneath a black surface? Now, imagine that in a digital format! Digital scratch art apps or programs, like those found in Wixie, offer a fantastic, mess-free way to recreate this experience. These platforms provide a collection of digital scratch art templates featuring various backgrounds just waiting to be discovered.
Students can use a digital eraser tool to “scratch” away the top layer, revealing the hidden artwork underneath. This activity is not only fun and engaging but also helps develop fine motor skills and encourages artistic exploration in a digital environment. It’s a perfect blend of nostalgia and modern technology, making art accessible and exciting for kindergarteners.
4. Design a Mondrian-Inspired Artwork
Introduce your students to the world of abstract art with Piet Mondrian, the renowned Dutch painter. Explore the Tate Museum’s kid-friendly page about Mondrian together. Discuss his signature style characterized by primary colors and geometric shapes. Understanding Mondrian’s work can be both educational and visually stimulating for young children.
After learning about Mondrian, transition to a hands-on digital art project. Utilize digital coloring page tools to access Mondrian-style templates. Challenge students to fill in a Mondrian coloring page with vibrant primary colors using a digital paint bucket tool. This activity encourages color recognition, shape identification, and introduces them to a significant art movement in an accessible and interactive way.
5. Celebrate Community Heroes Digitally
Highlight the invaluable contributions of community helpers with a digital project that fosters appreciation and understanding. Discuss different community helpers – firefighters, doctors, teachers, postal workers – and their roles in keeping our communities safe and functional. Brainstorm with your students about how these individuals are essential to their daily lives.
For the digital component, have students create digital sentence strips showcasing a community helper. They can combine words describing the helper’s role, pictures illustrating their work, and even record their own narration explaining why that helper is important. This activity integrates literacy, social studies, and digital storytelling, fostering civic awareness and gratitude in young learners.
6. Customize a School Backpack Design
Engage your students’ creativity and self-expression with a fun design activity: customizing a digital school backpack. Provide templates of backpacks in a digital painting program or even simple drawing apps. Encourage them to use digital coloring tools, stamps, and drawing features to decorate their backpacks in a way that reflects their unique personalities and interests.
To enhance this activity, prompt students to use their device’s microphone or video camera to record a short explanation of their design choices. They can describe the colors they chose, the symbols they included, and what makes their backpack design special and representative of who they are. This blends art with personal expression and public speaking skills.
7. Picture Names with Initial Sounds
Phonological awareness is a cornerstone of early literacy. This activity creatively combines letter sounds with visual recognition. As your students are learning letter sounds, task them with a picture hunt! Their mission is to find images of objects that begin with the same initial sounds as the letters in their own names.
Using a digital platform, help students spell out their names across the top of a digital page. Beneath each letter, they will add clip art images or drawings of objects that match the initial sound. For example, under the letter ‘B,’ they might place a picture of a ball or banana. This activity reinforces letter-sound correspondence and name recognition in a visually engaging way.
8. Design a Hibernation Hotel
Dive into the fascinating world of animal hibernation with a design challenge that integrates science and creativity. As students learn about the needs of living beings and non-living objects, focus on animals that hibernate. Challenge them to become engineers and design a “hibernation hotel” – a safe and cozy shelter for a hibernating animal.
Using digital drawing tools or even a virtual building platform, students can design a hotel that includes all the essentials for a comfortable winter sleep: warmth, safety, and a food supply. They can add elements like warm bedding, secure walls, and hidden food stores. This project encourages scientific thinking, empathy for animals, and creative problem-solving.
Explore the “Hibernation Hotel” lesson plan for more in-depth learning and extension activities.
9. Explore Opposites with Antonym Illustrations
Expand vocabulary and word understanding by exploring antonyms (opposite words). Begin with an engaging reading of Dr. Seuss’s “The Foot Book,” which playfully uses antonyms. After reading, brainstorm a list of antonym pairs with your students, starting with simple examples like hot/cold, up/down, or big/small.
Now, bring antonyms to life visually. Using a digital creativity tool like Wixie, students can create illustrations of antonym pairs. For example, for “hot/cold,” one side of the page could depict a sunny beach scene (hot) and the other a snowy mountain (cold). Encourage them to use the microphone tool to record explanations of their illustrations, further solidifying their understanding of antonyms.
10. Sort and Label Nature Walk Treasures
Take learning outdoors with a nature walk! Venture outside and collect natural items like rocks, leaves, flowers, and sticks. Once back in the classroom, or even outdoors, find a space to sort these treasures. Encourage students to categorize them in various ways – by shape, color, texture, or type of object. This hands-on sorting activity builds early classification skills.
To integrate digital learning, have students take a photo of their sorted nature collections. Upload the picture to a digital tool like Wixie. Students can then add text labels to identify each object in their collection and use voice narration to explain their sorting criteria. This combines outdoor exploration with digital documentation and reflection.
11. Create a Digital Self-Portrait Collage
Self-expression and visual representation come together in this digital collage activity. Ask students to think about what makes them unique – their favorite things, hobbies, family, etc. Then, using a digital tool, have them create a collage of images that represent themselves. Digital platforms like Wixie make it easy to add, resize, and arrange images.
This activity can be extended beyond self-portraits. Students can create collages to represent events in a story they’ve read, things they observe during different seasons, or elements of a particular theme you are studying. This fosters visual thinking, digital composition skills, and creative self-expression.
Explore the “Me: A Visual Essay” lesson plan for deeper exploration of visual storytelling.
12. Conduct Peer Surveys and Tally Results
Introduce early data collection and analysis with peer surveys. Choose a fun and relatable topic – favorite book, sport, food, game, or at-home activity. Pose a question to the class, like “What is your favorite animal?” Project the question on a whiteboard or use a digital tally sheet template.
As students respond, collectively tally the answers. Digitally, you can use interactive whiteboard tools or create a simple tally chart in a presentation program. Visually representing survey results helps students grasp basic data concepts and understand how to collect and organize information. This activity builds foundational math and social skills in a collaborative setting.
13. Sight Word Storytelling: “I Go… I See”
Reinforce sight word recognition and sentence structure with an engaging sight word story activity. Use a template that starts with the phrases “I go…” and “I see…”. This repetitive structure is perfect for emergent readers to build confidence and fluency.
Have each student complete the sentences with different locations and things they might see. For example, “I go to the park. I see a swing.” Then, have them digitally illustrate their page to match their sentences. Compile all the pages digitally to create a class book that students can “read” together on devices or print out for a classroom library, fostering a sense of authorship and shared reading experiences.
14. Describe Your Family with Digital Portraits
Family is a central theme in kindergarten, and this activity allows students to express their love and describe their family members using digital tools. Have students use a digital paint program to create a portrait of their family. They can draw each family member, adding details that represent them.
Once their portraits are complete, encourage them to use their device’s microphone to name each person and describe them. They can talk about their hair color, favorite activities, or personality traits. To add a literacy component, students can add text labels with each family member’s name or a descriptive word they used, combining art, language, and personal connection.
15. Map Your Neighborhood Digitally
Spatial awareness and understanding of their surroundings are crucial for kindergarteners. Task students with creating a map of important places in their neighborhood – their home, school, a park, a friend’s house, etc. They can start with a blank digital page or use a digital grid paper template for guidance.
Students can then draw locations as simple shapes or, for a more advanced approach, capture photos of landmarks in their neighborhood using a device and import them into their digital map. They can label streets and locations, creating a personalized map that enhances their understanding of their immediate environment and basic map-making skills.
16. Become a Masked Reader for Fluency Practice
Transform reading fluency practice into an exciting and less intimidating activity inspired by “The Masked Singer.” This approach can significantly reduce reading anxiety, especially for English Language Learners (ELLs) and struggling readers, as it allows for private practice and repeated attempts.
Students choose a reading passage and practice reading it aloud. They can record themselves reading, delete, and re-record until they are satisfied with their fluency. The “masked” aspect comes from the privacy – their recordings don’t have to be shared publicly unless they choose to “unmask” themselves. This method promotes fluency in a supportive and pressure-free digital environment.
17. Showcase the Changing Seasons Visually
The changing seasons are a readily observable scientific phenomenon perfect for kindergarten exploration. Engage students in observing and representing the seasons through digital means. Discuss the characteristics of each season – winter snow, spring flowers, summer sun, fall leaves.
Ask students to draw or collect clip art images that represent objects, activities, and weather associated with a specific season. They can create a digital scene for each season, showcasing their understanding of seasonal changes and building their scientific observation skills in a visually appealing way.
18. Construct a Coin Caterpillar for Math Fun
Make learning about coins and their values engaging with a creative “coin caterpillar” activity. While physical coins are great manipulatives, digital versions offer a germ-free and equally effective alternative. Using digital coin images, ask students to create a caterpillar body using different coin types – quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies.
Once their coin caterpillar is constructed, have them count the number of each coin used and calculate the total value of their caterpillar. This activity makes practicing coin recognition, counting, and basic addition fun and visually stimulating.
19. Send a Virtual High Five of Gratitude
Cultivating gratitude is an important social-emotional skill to nurture from a young age. This activity encourages students to express appreciation with a virtual high five. Discuss the concept of gratitude and people they are thankful for – family, friends, teachers, community helpers.
Have students trace their hand on paper, take a photo, and import it digitally, or use a digital hand image template. They can then add images and voice narration to their hand graphic to create a virtual high five message. They can say “Thank you for helping me,” or “I appreciate you because…” and digitally send their high five to someone deserving of gratitude.
20. Count Down to Halloween with 13 Days of Halloween
Make counting practice festive and fun with a “13 Days of Halloween” project. This activity combines counting skills with the excitement of Halloween. Create a digital project with pages for numbers 1 through 13. For each number, students will indicate “how much of each object ‘my goblin gave to me.'” For example, “On the 1st day of Halloween, my goblin gave to me, 1 spooky spider.”
Students can illustrate each page with the corresponding number of Halloween-themed items. Combine all the pages digitally to create a class book (or even two if class size is large). This project reinforces counting in sequence and number recognition in a thematic and engaging way.
Explore the “13 Days of Halloween” lesson plan for a more detailed guide and variations.
21. Design a Family Flag with Symbols
Explore the concept of symbols and representation by designing family flags. Discuss how country flags use symbols to represent history, values, and identity. Then, ask students to apply this understanding to create a flag that represents their own family.
Students can brainstorm symbols, colors, and shapes that are meaningful to their family. Using digital drawing tools, they can design their family flag, incorporating these chosen symbols. They can explain the meaning behind each element of their flag, fostering creativity, symbolism understanding, and family pride.
Explore the “Fashion a Family Flag” lesson plan for deeper insights and lesson extensions.
22. Letter Sound Object Hunt in the Classroom
Reinforce letter sounds through an active classroom object hunt. Choose a specific letter sound for the day, for example, the letter ‘C’ sound. Challenge students to walk around the classroom or school environment and hunt for objects that begin with that sound, such as a clock, chair, or crayon for ‘C’.
Students can use devices to capture images of the objects they find. Back in the classroom, using a digital creativity tool like Wixie, they can add these photos to a digital page and label each object. Alternatively, they can draw pictures of objects beginning with the target letter sound if photo capture is not feasible, reinforcing letter-sound association in a dynamic and interactive way.
23. Explore Emotions with the Color Monster
Social-emotional learning is essential in kindergarten. Use the book “The Color Monster” by Anna Llenas as a starting point to discuss emotions. This book personifies emotions with different colors, making them relatable for young children. Read the story aloud and discuss the monster’s different emotions – happiness, sadness, anger, fear, calmness.
Have students choose one emotion, like happy, sad, or angry. Using a digital tool, they will illustrate what causes that emotion for them personally. For example, for “happy,” a student might draw playing with friends. Then, have them record an appropriate action they can take when they feel this emotion, like “When I am angry, I can take deep breaths.” This activity fosters emotional literacy and self-regulation skills.
24. Share a Favorite Book Recommendation
Build foundational argument writing skills by having kindergarteners express opinions and provide reasons. Start with a simple opinion: their favorite book. Ask students to think about a book they truly love and why.
Using digital paint tools, have them draw a picture representing their favorite book – a scene, a character, or the cover itself. Then, using their device’s microphone, they record themselves explaining why this book is their favorite. This activity encourages opinion expression, articulation of reasons, and book recommendation skills in a digital format.
25. Pattern Play with Digital Art
Pattern recognition and creation are foundational for mathematical thinking, even leading to algebraic concepts later on. Digital art tools make it incredibly easy to experiment with patterns. Students can use digital paintbrushes, stamps, and shape tools to create repeating patterns.
Introduce different pattern types – ABA, ABBA, ABC. Challenge students to create digital artwork incorporating these patterns. They can paint patterns with colors, shapes, or even add images to make repeating sequences. This activity makes pattern learning visual, interactive, and artistically expressive.
26. Describe a Book Character with a Trait Cluster
Deepen reading comprehension by focusing on character analysis. After reading a story, have students recall details about a main character. Using a digital trait cluster template, guide them to describe the character’s physical traits, feelings, and actions.
Students can add text, images, and even voice narration to different sections of the trait cluster to comprehensively describe the character. This activity enhances reading comprehension, character analysis skills, and digital organization of information.
27. Inform Others with Digital Presentations
Even kindergarteners can become information sharers! Encourage them to inform others about topics they are learning in class. Instead of focusing on writing or typing, leverage digital tools for easier communication. For example, after learning about animals, a student can choose an animal to “teach” others about.
Using a digital presentation tool, they can add an image of their chosen animal and record their voice sharing facts and information about it. This is particularly effective for ELLs, as it allows them to express their knowledge verbally without the pressure of written language. This activity builds confidence in presenting information and utilizes digital tools for effective communication.
28. Design a Thanksgiving Day Parade Balloon
Connect literature with art and imagination using the book “Balloons Over Broadway,” which tells the story of Tony Sarg and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons. Read the book aloud to introduce students to the history and artistry of these iconic balloons.
Then, using a digital paint program, ask them to design their own Thanksgiving Day parade balloon. They can let their imaginations soar and create fantastical balloon shapes and characters. To add a storytelling element, have students use their device’s microphone to share a short story about seeing their balloon in the parade, combining art, storytelling, and imaginative play.
29. Showcase a Habitat with Digital Scenes
Celebrate budding scientists by having them demonstrate their knowledge of habitats. After learning about different habitats like forests, oceans, or deserts, have students choose their favorite habitat to showcase.
Using digital tools like Wixie, students can easily find a background image representing their chosen habitat. Then, they can add clip art stickers of plants and animals that live in that habitat, demonstrating their understanding of the ecosystem. This activity combines science knowledge with digital scene creation and visual representation.
30. Share a Symbol Story about US Symbols
Expand social studies learning beyond flags by exploring other US symbols. Read “The Great Seal of the United States” by Norman Pearl, which provides a kid-friendly account of the Great Seal’s creation through Ben Franklin’s perspective.
After reading, challenge students to create a story about another US symbol – the Statue of Liberty, the Liberty Bell, or the American flag itself. They can use digital storytelling tools to combine text, images, and voice narration to tell their symbol story, fostering civic knowledge and narrative skills.
Explore the “Symbol Story” lesson plan for further exploration of US symbols and storytelling techniques.
31. Count to Design in Creative Math Activities
Make counting more engaging than rote repetition by integrating creativity and design thinking. Instead of simply counting objects, ask students to “count to design.” For example, for a garden theme, ask them to add a specific number of food items to a digital garden scene.
Other examples include adding a certain number of animals to a digital safari park template or creatures to a spooky scene. This approach makes counting purposeful and visually driven, linking math to creative expression and design.
32. Record Your Positive Community Actions
Encourage civic responsibility and self-reflection by having students document their positive actions within their community. Discuss what it means to be a helpful community member and brainstorm actions students can take – helping at home, being kind at school, or participating in community events.
Have students draw a picture representing a positive action they took, write a sentence describing it, and then record their voice narrating their efforts. This activity promotes self-awareness, positive behavior, and digital storytelling skills.
33. Write a 5 Senses Poem to Enhance Observation
Engage all five senses to enhance scientific observation and descriptive writing. Writing 5 senses poems helps young learners add vivid details to their writing and practice sensory vocabulary. If students need a focus, provide a specific topic for their poem – a season, a fruit, or a place.
Guide them to think about what they can see, hear, smell, taste, and touch related to their topic. They can then write a poem using these sensory details. Digitally, they can type their poem and add images that evoke the senses they describe, combining poetry with visual representation and sensory awareness.
Explore the “5 Senses Poetry” lesson plan for more structured guidance and examples.
34. Tell a Tangram Tale with Shape Stories
Tangrams are fantastic for spatial reasoning. After students have worked with tangram puzzles, introduce Ann Tompert’s “Grandfather Tang’s Story.” In this book, tangram shapes are rearranged to represent characters and events as the grandfather tells a story.
Inspired by the book, ask students to use digital tangram shapes to create an object or character. Then, have them tell a story about their tangram creation. Combine these tangram tales into a class digital book, blending math, storytelling, and spatial reasoning.
35. “What If You Could Be Going Places?” Digital Exploration
Expand horizons and geographical awareness with a “going places” activity. Connect with someone who lives far away via video call or read about a different location. Focus on learning about the weather and culture of that place.
Using a digital tool, have students create a presentation showcasing the weather in that location, what clothes they would pack, and activities they could do there. This activity combines geography, weather knowledge, cultural awareness, and digital presentation skills.
36. Shape a Mother’s Day Bouquet with Digital Clip Art
Combine art and digital skills to create a heartfelt Mother’s Day gift. Using common digital clip art shapes – circles, ovals, rectangles, triangles – students can create a vase filled with flowers. Provide a template of a vase outline or have them draw one digitally.
Students can then arrange and layer different shapes to create flowers of various colors and designs within the vase. This activity combines art, shape recognition, digital manipulation skills, and thoughtful gift creation.
37. Adapt a Pattern Story for Budding Authors
Encourage creative writing and story adaptation skills. Using familiar pattern stories (stories with repetitive phrases or structures), challenge students to give them a twist. They can adapt a story by adding new nouns or verbs, changing characters, or altering the setting.
Provide a list of books suitable for student adaptation. Students can digitally rewrite parts of the story and illustrate their adapted version, fostering creative writing, narrative adaptation, and digital storytelling skills.
Explore a list of books perfect for student adaptation for inspiration and ideas.
38. Record a Favorite School Year Memory
Encourage reflection and positive memory recall by having students create a digital “favorite memory” project. Ask them to reflect on the school year and choose their most cherished memory.
They can draw a picture representing their memory and record their voice describing what happened and why it’s their favorite. This activity promotes reflection, memory recall, and digital storytelling of personal experiences.
39. Create Your Own Digital Pet Show
Spark imagination and pet appreciation with a digital pet show activity inspired by the book “Pet Show!” by Ezra Jack Keats. Read the book aloud, which celebrates pets of all kinds.
Have students use digital paint tools to draw a picture of their pet (real or imagined). Then, they can add a superlative describing the award their pet won – “Most Talented,” “Cutest,” “Best Trick.” This activity combines art, pet appreciation, descriptive language, and imaginative play.
40. Plan a Class Party: Math in Real Life
Make math practical and engaging by planning a class party. Planning a party involves real-life applications of math skills, such as measurement for space and calculations for budgeting. Engage students in deciding party details – food, decorations, activities, and location.
For the digital component, use a template to plan the party. Students can estimate space needed, create a simple budget using digital tools, and even design a digital playlist of songs for the party. This project links math skills to a fun, real-world scenario, enhancing practical application and problem-solving.
Explore the “Plan an Event” lesson plan for a structured approach to party planning and math integration.
41. Build a Digital Word Wall for Vocabulary
Enhance vocabulary building with a personalized digital word wall. Digital tools make it easy for each student to create and add to their own word wall. As they encounter new words in books they are reading, ask them to add these words to their digital word wall.
Students can then look up the meaning in a digital dictionary or ask for help to define the word. They can add a picture or symbol to help them remember the meaning and even record their voice saying the word and definition. This creates a dynamic and personalized vocabulary resource that grows with their learning.
42. Scientific Thinking Foundations with Digital Tools
Foster early scientific inquiry using a modified approach to the scientific method adapted for kindergarteners. Use a digital template to guide them through the process. Start with observation – what do they notice about the world around them? Then, encourage them to form a hypothesis – what do they think might happen?
Next, guide them to think about how they could test their idea (simple experiment or observation). Finally, they can analyze their results – what did they learn? This simplified scientific method approach, supported by digital tools for recording observations and hypotheses, cultivates early scientific thinking skills.
43. Publish Student Writing Digitally
Motivate young writers by publishing their stories for a real audience. Use a digital publishing tool like Wixie, which allows students to write or record their stories and create their own illustrations easily.
Once their stories are complete, share a URL link to their digital book or export it as a PDF to easily share with family on phones and tablets. Digital publishing gives students a sense of accomplishment and purpose, encouraging them to take pride in their writing and share their work with others.
44. Tell a Cycle Story after Science Learning
Reinforce science concepts, like life cycles, through storytelling. After learning about the life cycle of a frog or butterfly, have students retell it as a cycle story. They can use digital tools to create a visual story, depicting each stage of the life cycle.
Students can draw pictures, add text labels describing each stage, and record their voice narrating the cycle story. This activity combines science knowledge with storytelling and digital presentation skills, solidifying their understanding of life cycles in a creative way.
Explore the “Cycle Story” lesson plan for more structured guidance on creating cycle narratives.
45. Create a Digital Classroom Tour for New Students
Build empathy and classroom community by having students create a classroom tour for new students. Once your class has established routines and familiarity with the classroom, ask them to apply their knowledge of locations and rules to design a digital tour.
Using a digital presentation tool, students can take photos of different areas of the classroom and record voiceovers explaining each area and relevant rules. This digital tour can then be easily shared with new students joining the class throughout the year or for students entering kindergarten the following year, fostering a welcoming and informative resource.
Explore the “Classroom Tour” lesson plan for a step-by-step guide to creating effective classroom tours.
46. Write About Your Favorite Relative with Opinion Templates
Practice opinion writing with a “favorite relative” project. Provide structure for emergent writers by using an O-R-E-O Opinion template (Opinion, Reasons, Example, Opinion). This template guides students to state their opinion (who is their favorite relative), share 2-3 reasons why, and finish with a concluding statement.
Students can digitally fill out the O-R-E-O template, adding text and even pictures of their favorite relative. Encourage them to share their completed project with their favorite relative, making the writing activity personal and meaningful.
Explore the “Favorite Relative” lesson plan for more details and template resources.
47. Watch the Weather and Record Observations
Integrate daily weather observation into your morning routine. Spend a few minutes each day during morning meeting identifying the weather – sunny, cloudy, rainy, snowy. Use a digital weather chart template to make it visual.
Choose a specific day each week to have students record their weather observations more formally. They can use digital tools to add pictures of the weather, write simple descriptions using weather terminology, and track weather patterns over time. This builds scientific observation skills and foundational understanding of weather concepts.
48. Get Creative with Five and Ten Frames Digitally
Make counting and number sense practice engaging with creative five and ten frame projects. Digital tools offer flexibility in designing these activities. For October, create a ten frame farm garden and count pumpkins. In summer, design a beach towel pattern and count beach balls and suns to fill five or ten frames.
Digital templates for five and ten frames make it easy to create these visual counting activities. Students can digitally drag and drop images into the frames to represent numbers, making counting interactive and thematic.
49. Construct with Virtual Blocks for Math Play
Make math playful and encourage math vocabulary development with virtual blocks. Find digital games or apps, like Wixie’s “Build with Blocks,” that allow students to build and create with digital shapes and manipulatives.
These virtual block activities provide opportunities to use math vocabulary – shapes, sizes, positions – while having fun. If physical blocks are available, extend the activity by asking students to try to recreate their digital designs with real blocks, connecting virtual and physical construction.
50. Write and Illustrate Word Problems
Develop problem-solving and visualization skills by having students create their own word problems. Have them use a digital paint or image program to draw models or pictures that help visualize the quantities and relationships described in their word problems.
For example, a student might draw three apples and two bananas to create a word problem about adding fruits. This activity encourages them to understand the structure of word problems and use visual aids to represent mathematical concepts, strengthening both problem-solving and digital illustration skills.
Empowering Kindergarten Learners Through Choice and Ownership
Once kindergarteners have gained experience with these digital projects, empower them further by allowing them to choose the format or method for demonstrating their understanding. Simply ask them to articulate and justify their choice before they begin. Regardless of the chosen activity or format, the key is to transfer as much responsibility as possible to the students, fostering motivation, ownership, and a sense of control over their own learning journey.
By Melinda Kolk
Melinda Kolk (@melindak) is the Editor of Creative Educator and the author of Teaching with Clay Animation. She has been helping educators implement project-based learning and creative technologies like clay animation into classroom teaching and learning for the past 15 years.
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