Activities to Teach Homeschool Kindergarten

Kids in kindergarten have a well-earned reputation for being ready explorers, eager to understand their world and experience new things. There are many games and educational activities to teach kindergarten skills, either in place of worksheets and other curriculum, or as a complement. No matter which homeschooling method you follow, working games into your days can be rewarding both academically and socially.

Teach Kindergarten Math with Games and Activities

Any game that involves the rolling of a die can lend itself easily to teaching counting and pattern recognition. With two dice, children learn to recognize patterns and to add digits below six. Reinforce written math skills by keeping score in block print, or having the child keep score by adding. Using math manipulatives like counting bears, beans or an abacus can help kindergarteners calculate scores easier.

If you’re using a board game to teach math that involves moving pieces along a path, like Candy Land, then counting the squares is another math skill. You can work more math into the play by asking, “How far is your piece from mine?” or “How many squares until you reach the castle?”

Activities that help with kindergarten math skills are infinite. Counting how many cookies are on the cookie sheet introduces a child to early multiplication skills (most cookies are baked a dozen at a time, in 4 rows of 3 cookies.) Arranging books on a shelf by their size can help introduce words like “smaller, shorter, taller, wider, thicker and thinner.” Sorting clothes by color can also lend itself to early mathematical skills.

A kindergartener with siblings will likely already have a basic understanding of concepts like “more and less.” To test this theory, dish up ice cream and give the kindergartener a teeny scoop.

Kindergarten Writing and Reading Activities and Games

Scrabble makes a junior version of the game that can be played on both sides of the board. On one side, players match the letter on their tile to the letter on the board and basically copy the words already made. As their skills increase, the back of the game board is more like the adult’s version. Many families have learned how to use the tiles as a basic manipulative for the kinesthetic learner and create homemade word games.

Boggle is a word game that involves creating as many words as possible with the 4 letters showing on rolled alphabet dice. Just as with Scrabble, other games can be invented using the alphabet dice as a manipulative. For early readers and writers, one die can be rolled and the child can be asked to say as many words as he can think of that begin with that sound. Dice can be left on a table and the child can be asked to arrange them to spell a word.

Verbal word games can be invented on a whim. Sprinkle random rhymes into your conversation, like “ready, Freddy?” Listening to rhyming stories, like those by Dr. Seuss can help kindergarteners get the feel for rhyming words, and onomatopoeia. More difficult stories, like Stuart Little, introduce children to vocabulary words they might not otherwise hear. Also, children who are accustomed to sitting and listening to stories might have a longer attention span.

Games and activities can replace or supplement your kindergarten curriculum. They’re especially effective for pre-writing students and kids who have an aversion to worksheets. Using games in the curriculum are a great way to maintain the natural love-of-learning that’s characteristic of kindergarteners. Several kindergarten skills can be taught via games and activities.

Kindergarteners Like to Play

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