Are you ready for back to school? It’ll be here before you know it! There’s labels to be made, bulletin boards to get ready, and centers to be planned! That’s why today’s blog post is full of great Kindergarten Back to School Centers!
It seems like June and July go by faster than any other months. It feels like just yesterday school was out. We have been super busy here at The Printable Princess headquarters. If you follow me on Instagram, you know we recently bought a house here in Wisconsin. Moving is A LOT of work, but decorating is so much fun!
So now that the move is behind us, most of the boxes have been unpacked, and we are finally getting settled, I have been searching far and wide for some back to school treasures. I found these little gems in the Dollar Deals section Target. I was crazy excited to find these large, colorful dice. I will be using them with the activities in the It’s All Fun and Games monthly packets. The size makes them just perfect for little hands. The quiet foam is an added bonus!If you don’t feel like snooping around to various stores looking for the same dice, you can use my affiliate link to buy your own on Amazon by clicking here.
After I cleaned out shopped at Target, my next stop was The Dollar Tree. I love this store. It always amazes me what I can turn my dollar in to! On this particular trip I got some things to make Kindergarten back to school centers for the classroom, some glow sticks, and a Styrofoam airplane (that was my husband’s purchase…not mine).
I bought these adorable theme cut-outs. They were one dollar. One. dollar. people. I am going to add these to my usual back-to-school centers and use them to reinforce letters and numbers.
Here’s a few pictures of some of the other centers I use in the first few weeks of kindergarten back to school centers. They are from the unit Pencils, Glue, and Centers Too. I keep centers very simple in the beginning and I always include “I Can” charts to help keep students on task and so that they know what to do.In the Letter Match center, students match the uppercase letter cards to the lowercase letters on the mat. There’s also picture cards included for students who are ready to work on beginning sounds. Mats and letter/picture cards are color coded, so there is no confusion!
Here’s a picture of the beginning sounds version.
Here’s the letter and word sort center. Students sort the cards using the sorting mats labeled “Letters” and “Words”. They record their answers on the recording sheet.
This is a fun center and is always a favorite of my Kinders! Students say the name of the letter on the card. They find the matching letter on their paper. Using the color that is on the card, they trace the letter on the paper.
Secret Code Letter Sounds…another class favorite! Students look at the three pictures to identify the secret beginning sound. Later in the year we spell sight words with these secret codes.
I love write and wipe activities. In this center, students work on fine motor skills and pre-writing skills by tracing the lines.
So that’s a snapshot of our Kindergarten back to school centers for the first few weeks of school. I always keep the activities easy and the skills consistent. We focus on just a couple of skills as we get used to our new routines.There’s a total of 23 centers in the Pencils, Glue, and Centers too packet {13 math and 10 literacy}.
You can check out all of the centers by clicking HERE or on the picture below.
Have a wonderful school year!!!
Thanks for reading along as I shared about our Kindergarten back to school centers!
Love this post, so many great ideas! Any chance you could create a letter matching recording sheet for the milk and cookie cutout from Dollar Tree? I’ll happily pay for them.
Thanks
Hi Lynn,
You can find the milk and cookies activity here: https://www.theprintableprincess.com/december-math-and-literacy-fun/
-Melissa
Love love love your ideas! Thanks so much!
I love your centers. This is my 10th year of teaching K and I like when I find cute new ideas! Thanks for sharing!!!
I LOVE these letter matching and number matching Dollar Tree centers you made!! What a great beginning of the year center! Time for me to head to the Dollar Tree! Thanks for sharing! 🙂
Carlee Van Ness
The Kindergarten Press
The Dollar Tree centers are so cute! Thank you for sharing
You're welcome, Carmen! Thanks so much for stopping by! 🙂
-Melissa
How many packages of the ketchup/mustard do you need to do the alphabet matching?
You'll need 3 packs as there are only 24 in ea. pack and you'll need 52 to make both upper and lower case letters. You'll have some blanks leftover for some other piece of goodness tho!
hi Lee Ann,
You would need 3 packages of cut-outs (52 total pieces) to make a match for all 26 letters of the alphabet. During the first few weeks of school, I don't give my students all of the letters to match-up because that can be a lot of pieces and overwhelming for a Kinder brand new to the classroom, especially the little guys who are new to letter recognition. For the recording sheet they only need 8 matches, which is what I will give them at first so that they can be successful. A few weeks later I would give them the whole set and use the recording sheet again. Hope that helps!!
-Melissa
Thank you SO much! These were wonderful ideas!
Aww, thank you! I'm so glad you like them. Thanks so much for stopping by.
I love the idea of using those cut outs to create a center! I saw them at the store and was wondering what teachers were suppose to do with them. Thank you for creating the worksheets to go with them.
They are great for centers! Once laminated, they are pretty durable. And a recording sheet is a must!! Glad you love them! 🙂
Hi I was just wondering if it is at all possible for you to post a clear individual picture of each cut out so it can be copied and laminated in order for us to use the worksheets. I live in Australia (and I understand these are a year old so may not be available still) but would appreciate this if possible?
I was JUST @ The Dollar Tree Store yesterday and completely ignored these cut outs, choosing another set. I'm going to have to go back! Thanks for the idea. I'll modify it for my 3rd graders with synonyms or the alphabet in cursive!
What a great idea to use cursive for older students!!! So glad you are able to use them! 🙂
-Melissa