One great way to help your students learn new concepts is by putting it in a song! Kids at the kindergarten age level learn really well through music. This can be a great way to teach them things like sight words, letter sounds, digraphs, and more! You can find lots of great songs for teaching these concepts on YouTube. Channels like Jack Hartmann and Have Fun Teaching has simple but engaging songs that would be easy to teach your kindergarteners. Or, you can make up your own! Just make sure they are catchy and easy to remember.

“Play is the work of the child,” as Maria Montessori once said, and it couldn’t be more true! Children are meant to play. But, that doesn’t mean they can’t learn through their play. Children are constantly learning! Kindergarten teachers can allow children to play while also fostering learning opportunities. Many everyday games and toys can be given an educational twist -you just have to get creative! Here are a few ideas to get you started:

●Label blocks or building bricks with letters for students to practice building “word towers.” This can be used for sight words, or they can practice spelling their names. You can also challenge them to build a simple word (like “cat”) and then see what other sight words, they might be able to make by switching out only one letter (like “hat,” “cut,” or “cap”).

●Matching games are so versatile and can be used to help students practice many different literacy concepts. Students can match uppercase letters to lowercase letters, sight words to a matching picture, beginning sounds with a picture and word that starts with that sound, etc.

●Practice letter sounds by playing “I Spy” in the classroom. The teacher or a student can identify an item in the classroom that starts with a certain letter and then name the letter the item starts with (i.e. “I spy something starting with the letter ‘a'”). Students will then search the room for items that start with the letter “a” and say them out loud until the correct item is found. This gives students good practice with identifying the beginning sound without seeing the actual letter.

●Bingo is another game that is incredibly versatile, and kids love it! You can create simple bingo boards using sight words. The teacher will simply call out a word and the students must identify it on their board! (Bonus: students can practice writing their sight words, too, by creating their own bingo board! Give them a blank grid and have them randomly right one sight word in each box. Then play!)

Making real world connections to the things you are learning is powerful. Seeing how the things they are learning at school apply to real life helps create a buy-in for the student that makes them want to learn more! As you read books with your students, stop and ask them questions that get them to draw on their own experiences so they better understand the story. Incorporate practice into real life activities like writing a shopping list. You can also encourage students to keep an eye out for sight words so they can see just how common they really are.

If you teach multiple subjects, one handy time-saving trick is to incorporate literacy into the other subjects you teach! This way, your students are practicing two different skills at once which will free up some classroom time to focus on other things. You can read books about things you are learning in science or social studies. These subjects can also make good journal prompts -or oral discussion prompts, if your students aren’t ready for writing yet. If you have sight words that relate to something you’re learning in another subject area (like number words in math, for example), you can tie those into various activities for some extra practice!Teaching kindergarten can be difficult, but it can also be incredibly fun! Hopefully these 5 tips have given you some fresh new ideas to bring into your classroom. Implementing these techniques and ideas into your teaching is sure to help make your life easier and get your students excited about learning!