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Have fun with Cheez It Math and other free activities! Whether you homeschool or teach in a classroom, these preschool and kindergarten resources will help you incorporate fun and educational activities into your day. They make learning easy!
The activities in this post are great to use while at home during the COVID-19 Coronavirus outbreak. As a certified K-5 educator who taught kindergarten and first grade, I am sharing what we are doing in our home to stay on top of curriculum while quarantined at home. Of course, you can use them anytime of year in the home or classroom, too!
PLEASE NOTE: Life is busy as a work-at-home / stay-at-home/ homeschooling mama right now, so my directions here will be brief! Please follow me on Instagram @babblingabby where I will be sharing my daily activities and saving them in a story highlight!
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We started off our day with NEW playdoh! Honestly, what could be better?! Tip: if you’re ever introducing something new to your students or children, give them some time to play with it before trying to use it to instruct. Trust me, you’ll keep their attention far better if they’ve already had a chance to play with it!
So, after they had some time to just play with it, I had them roll it into as many tiny balls as they wanted. The squishing and rolling is great for fine motor development.
Then, I told them to line up their playdoh balls into a straight(ish) line. They used their finger to squish each ball and count it aloud.
Earlier in the week, I realized that they were struggling with making diagonal lines. So, I added some additional tracing practice instead of just jumping into tracing/writing the letter.
There are multiple reasons tracing activities are important. First, it helps them follow a path of motion, which will ultimately help them write letters. Second, it helps them learn control of their writing tool. Third, it helps them produce smooth and fluid lines. DOWNLOAD TRACING PRACTICE PAGES
Immediately after that, we moved into writing the letter X. I really like this page because not only does it include path of motion dotted lines, but the letter also has an outline. This helps them keep their letter in a dedicated space, in addition to knowing where to start and finish the letter. DOWNLOAD LETTER X FORMATION WORKSHEET
Brain breaks are so necessary to optimize learning. Really, for all ages. Think about it – visiting the snack or soda machine after a phone call, scrolling our phone between meetings, standing to stretch or taking a quick walk around our workplace – those are all ways we give our mind a chance to decompress. Littles need this, too!
For the 6-and-under crowd, their attention spans are around 7-15 minutes per activity. Much longer than that and you’ll totally lose them. They’ll get antsy in their seats, start fidgeting, look away, or become easily distracted by extraneous stimuli. All that to be said, break up their workload with a chance to get their wiggles out!
I cut up the brain break suggestions shown above and put them into a jar. We picked two. They had so much fun with both! Red Light, Green Light was the definitive favorite and mama was certainly winded after jumping up and down 100 times! DOWNLOAD BRAIN BREAKS
The color of the week is orange. We did a very simple Color It, Trace It, Make It activity. While this may seem like a very basic activity, it serves several purposes:
They did a great job and this sustained their attention for about ten minutes. As we do more like this, they’ll be familiar with the expectations and should be able to finish it independently. Independence is a great skill for home or the classroom!
To do this activity, you’ll need a few materials:
To start with, I printed and cut out some large cracker manipulatives on orange cardstock. Then, I made a giant ten frame from painter’s tape on the kids’ table. You could easily do this on any flat surface, including carpet or floor.
I gave each kid five cracker manipulatives and they each used half the frame. I called out quantities 1-5 and they filled their frame accordingly.
Then, they took turns spinning a number and filling the frame with quantities from 1-10. As a follow up, we did the same thing, except used real Cheez-Its! As always, food is fun 😉
If you’re working with kiddos who can write equations, they can use the blankspace to write one. (PS. The CheezFrame work mat comes with a five frame, ten frame, and two ten frames per page.)
We purchased this ABC Cookie game a few weeks ago. There are suggested activities and word building cards included, but there are infinite uses when it comes the alphabet, in my opinion! They’re very durable and easy to handle, too.
Today, we simply put them into alphabetical order. They are all lowercase, so keep that in mind when purchasing. We spilled out the container, and I started reciting the alphabet.
They did need some help with this (mostly just repeating the alphabet), but they easily found the letters and placed them in line.
I have created and shared dozens of free activities and printables for the 6-and-under crowd that can easily be adapted for home or school. Check them out!
I hope you’ll use this Cheez It Math and other free activities in your home or classroom. If you do something at home or in your classroom, please share it with by tagging me @babblingabby on Instagram!
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Abby is a former kindergarten and first grade teacher who channels her passion for education into creating engaging activities and resources for the kindergarten and first grade classroom. When not dreaming up or working on her next project, you’ll find her enjoying her family – most likely in her minivan on the way to a soccer field.
Help your students build their phonemic awareness with this simple segmenting activity. Get 25 FREE practice pages sent to your inbox today.
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